Oct 25, 2012 4 min read

MCMURRAY – The Peters Township boys soccer team has had seven players go home from school early and miss practice time since its last game 10 days ago. Not to worry. Senior Justin Magnotti made sure Thursday night’s WPIAL Class AAA quarterfinal against visiting Seneca Valley didn’t last too long past regulation. Magnotti, who was one of those affected and could barely squeak out a sentence after the game, scored on a deflected free kick in the 86th minute to lift No. 1 seed Peters Township to a 2-1 victory in overtime. “I had the ball at my feet, and I thought I might as well take the shot,” Magnotti said. “It was right there for me.” So, too, is a trip to the WPIAL Class AAA semifinals for Peters Township, where the Indians will play No. 13 Canon-McMillan – which beat No. 12 Franklin Regional 1-0 last night – at Baldwin Tuesday. Matt Saluga gave No. 5 seed Seneca Valley (14-5-1) a 1-0 lead in the 46th minute when he scored on a rebound from a similar spot. Anthony Crivelli started the sequence with a spectacular individual effort, cutting through the Peters Township defense before goalkeeper Max O’Hare dove and deflected his shot. Troy Eskew tied it for Peters Township (14-1-2) by scoring after a scrum in front in the game’s 59th minute. “We tend to win a lot of games late in games,” Peters Township coach Bob Dyer said. “Whether that’s each player stepping up within this program at their time or the fact that we’ve been there before, we understand what pressure is.” And not just sinus pressure. Midfielder Max Lindsay only returned to practice Wednesday, and defender Mark Enscoe missed two practices. Midfielder Sean Baxendale was too sick to participate in a scrimmage last Friday against South Park. But fortunately for Peters, Magnotti had enough left in the tank. “He only had to do it once, thank God, and he did it the time that he needed to,” said Dyer, who was also hoarse. “That’s a great goal. Ball fell on his foot. He didn’t waste any time; he put it on the frame.”

The South Fayette boys might’ve scored the biggest upset of the postseason, knocking off top-seeded South Park – the only unbeaten, untied team in the draw – on penalty kicks, 1-0 (4-3). Brian Coyne, Travis Revay, Dan Pruss and Justin Goodwill all scored on kicks, with Goodwill’s goal – a mid-level, driven ball to the left-center of the goal – serving as the winner. “He’s been a little apprehensive about taking penalty kicks, and I told him, ‘Look, we rode you all the way here; I’m going to put you on the spot tonight,’ ” South Fayette coach Rob Eldridge said about Goodwill. “He had a big smile on his face, stepped up and delivered.” South Fayette (14-4-1) also went the unusual route of using two goalkeepers, pulling junior Alex Gedrys, who played all of regular and overtime, in favor of sophomore Andrew Pine. “We’ve been watching him closely when we did our penalty kicks in practice, and we thought he covered a little more of the frame than Alex did,” Eldridge said. “Not taking anything away from Alex, but Andrew covers a lot of space.” South Fayette advances to the WPIAL Class AA semifinals and will play No. 4 seed Quaker Valley, site and time to be determined. Defender gets offensive For the past two seasons, senior Eddie Hartman has been the right defender for the Canon-McMillan boys soccer team. But on Thursday night for the WPIAL Class AAA quarterfinals, Big Macs coach Larry Fingers moved Hartman up top, and the move paid off. Hartman scored with two and a half minutes left while playing as a forward to lift Canon-McMillan to a 1-0 victory over No. 12 seed Franklin Regional at North Allegheny. “We started to tinker around with the lineup to see what mix would work,” Fingers said. “He did exactly what we asked him to do. We slid a ball through to him, he took two nice calm touches, went to goal and buried it.” The win helped Canon-McMillan improve to 16-4 after a first-round upset of No. 5 Central Catholic. The Big Macs will play Peters Township – a team they suffered a pair of one-goal losses to during the regular season – next Tuesday night at Baldwin.