Wheeling Park Starts And Finishes Strong To Earn Another Trip To Final Four
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WHEELING -- After scuffling a bit over the last week of the regular season-- including a 1-0 loss to Hedgesville on Oct. 10-- Wheeling Park head coach Mario Julian said his team needed to put in the work to get back to "playing Wheeling Park soccer."
After Park's 4-1 victory in a rematch with Hedgesville in Thursday's WVSSAC Class AAAA North Regional Co-Final, the Patriots have accomplished something that has become synonymous with "Wheeling Park soccer" in recent history-- qualifying for next week's state tournament in Beckley.
"We lost to [Hedgesville] just two weeks ago, and we knew we had a lot of work to get back to playing Wheeling Park soccer,” Julian said after the win. “We worked really hard for the last 10 days because we didn’t have a game, and we made some plans. The seniors really lead this team, and they're looking forward to another opportunity downstate.
"For the seniors, this is their third trip in four years. We’ve been here for years, and we’ve always come up short, but this year we want to do something special. We want to come back with a championship."
Park, who were seeded atop the North Region, got off to a fast start against No. 5 Hedgesville after Graham Loy's goal in just the fourth minute of play at Wheeling Island Stadium.
Julian said his team put a heavy emphasis on starting Thursday strong.
"Oh my goodness, the first five minutes were all we talked about in practice all week because we wanted to get that lead in the first five minutes," Julian said. "We didn’t get very many scoring chances against [Hedgesville] the last time. And we thought that with our new formation that we’d get scoring chances and we did. I think we could have had more than four goals today."
The game remained at 1-0 for most of the first half. Caleb Stauver was next to strike for Wheeling Park. After a corner kick ricocheted around a mass of bodies in front of Hedgesville's goal, Stauver managed to control the ball off of his chest and smack it through the net for a 2-0 lead in the 24th minute.
The Patriots led 2-0 at halftime.
Aiden McCroskey made it a 3-0 ballgame in the 55th minute for Park, and though the Eagles' Cristian Torres put Hedgesville on the board by converting a penalty kick in the 77th minute, there'd be no comeback in store for the visitors-- only a fourth Wheeling Park goal off the foot of McCroskey in the 79th minute.
McCroskey has been one of the Patriots' top goal-scorers this year, along with Tristin Gonzalez and Graham Loy, though Park's offense has taken a more balanced turn this year.
"That’s been our goal every year," Julian said of his team's state tournament berth. "This is my 26th season coaching, my 15th trip to the state tournament final four. It’s always special. I mean, we’ve had some teams in the past that aren’t as good, but we still set that goal to go to state. So these guys go in with high expectations.
"With all the talent we’ve lost in the last couple of years with Tresz McLeod, Wilson Hanna and Ike Aderholt and Sam Rockey, I mean, they had some tough shoes to fill. And this is our 14th win of the season, which is really good. And the seniors are just looking for another opportunity."
They'll get that opportunity beginning Nov. 4 inside Paul Cline Memorial Sports Complex in Beckley.
"We’re going to have to continue to play good defense," Julian said of his team's upcoming matchups. "We haven’t given up very many goals. I mean, the goal they got today was on a penalty kick with three minutes and 40 seconds left. We wanted a clean sheet pretty bad, so I think that’s the key, is to play really good defense.
"And then we’ve got really good players in Graham Loy and Aiden McCroskey in our attack right now, and they’re just tough for other teams to handle. I think the balance is really good right now between offense and defense, and I think that that’s gonna give us an opportunity to be successful downstate."