Clarion-Limestone Lions Boys Soccer Wins Physical Game Against Brockway
(By Matt Lerch)
The Clarion-Limestone Lions boys soccer team extended their winning season to 12-2 by beating Brockway by the score of 2-1, on Wednesday (October 11th). The Lions had a rare break of one week since their last game with 3 more regular season games left on the schedule. One never knows if the break happened at the right time to play a seasonal playoff contender like Brockway, but both teams played as if this win meant everything.
The Lions traveled to Varischetti Field at Brockway, on a 50 degree dry evening, to play on the artificial turf and under the bright lights.
The scoring started very early, within the first five minutes, when midfielder Wyatt Boyden slid a pass to forward Dany Schweitzer, who shot right on the venerable Brockway goalie making the score 1-0 Lions. The Lions’ goalie Isaac Lerch was tested early when a corner kick from Brockway was perfectly placed for an offensive strike on the right pole, only to be stopped by Lerch.
Once again, the Lions’ defense was extremely strong with Brady Pierce stopping many advances on the Lions’ goal on the right side of the field. Inside defenders Carter Brown and Jason Megnin were keeping Lerch safe for most of the first half with support from Chris Kim, Jameson McIlwain and Ky Clark.
Midfielder Quinn O’Neil stole the ball at midfield and took a shot just over the goal. Inside midfielder Thomas Uckert took a foul kick, shooting bottom right, but Brockway’s goalie made another incredible hand save. Midfielder Brenden Bettwy advanced the ball to forward Martin Ormeno who took a shot chest high and to the right but was stopped cold by the goalie. Finally, defender Pierce cleared a Brockway ball up field to an awaiting Bettwy, who took the ball for thirty yards with a defender in tow and at close range shot right to beat the goalie making the score 2-0.
Three consecutive corner kicks for the Lions failed to find the back of the net.
Midfielder Blaise Cunningham was active all game, and took his first shot on goal with a good goalie save. The buzzer sounded for the first half to end but the game was starting to take a tone that was not only physical and well played but also chippy.
Enter the second half and both teams came out on fire.
Bettwy had a penalty kick that went sailing over the goal crossbar. Lerch was now seeing more action with multiple offensive sorties coming in from Brockway that Lerch was having to make saves. Pierce was frustrating an extremely fast left winger from Brockway, stealing the ball at one point when the wing was at full speed coming down the sideline. Lerch had to make another difficult save on the right side of the net.
O’Neil and Kim were working the right side of the field now, flummoxing the Brockway defense and not allowing them to make their usual smooth passes on the flat surface of artificial turf. Another creative play combination from Bettwy to Boyden to Ormeno, who took the shot, was stopped with a slide save by the goalie. But the physicality had finally worn out the referees’ patience and two yellow cards were issued against some of Brockway’s fastest offensive players within the span of 7 minutes. However those players found themselves back on the field in minutes.
Uckert then found Nathan Frederick hustling down the right sideline with an incredible pass to Frederick. He then took the shot but the goalie had come out to challenge Frederick and made a sliding kick save.
Brockway never gave up with a will to score. Finally, in the last 4 minutes, Brockway’s forward was able to find a crack in the Lions’ defense, with a shot on Lerch down in the bottom right corner, scoring their first but last goal making the score 2-1. As the excitement built up in the stands, knowing that Brockway was pulling out all the stops, a long pass, in the last minute of play that looked promising to a Brockway forward, was abruptly halted by Brown and kicked back up field. Cunningham stopped 3 more advance attempts from the Brockway defense and the game came to an end.
Lerch ended the night with 8 saves.
The Lions will host West Shamokin on Thursday evening at C-L at 5PM. Their final two games will be played Monday against Redbank Valley at home and Tuesday at Kane.
(Keep it going, Lions!!!! Thanks to Matt Lerch for this article and photos!!)