Oct 20, 2014 4 min read

MARS – Trinity’s boys soccer team rose up the WPIAL Class AA ranks this season with a strong defense, an opportunistic offense and an ability to find open players downfield on long passes to create scoring chances.

The style of organized chaos the Hillers executed to reach the playoffs for the first time in 28 years backfired Monday night and kept their stay in the postseason short.

Knoch scored two second-half goals off turnovers and held on to defeat Trinity, 2-0, in a WPIAL Class AA first round playoff game at Mars High School.

The Knights (13-5) advanced to the quarterfinals, where they will face top-ranked South Park Wednesday at a site and time to be determined.

The Hillers’ season ends with a 12-4-3 overall record.

“I think (Knoch’s) strength was capitalizing on our mistakes,” Trinity head coach Ryan Julian said. “Each team makes mistakes, but what you do with the opponent’s mistakes makes a big difference. I don’t think they generated either one of their scoring chances. We accidentally gave them the ball in a bad place and they just capitalized with a great finishing shot.”

The first of those finishing shots came in the 49th minute, when Knights midfielder Jonmichael Lambert corralled a loose ball near the penalty box after a turnover by the Hillers, used his body to shield a defender and passed the ball to midfielder Caleb Ross in the slot.

Ross’ low shot hit the far post and deflected into the net behind Trinity junior keeper Ben Johnson for a 1-0 lead.

Ten minutes later, Trinity committed a turnover in its own end, which was collected by midfielder Davis Miller, who passed to Robb five yards from the net. Robb drew two defenders and found midfielder Benjamin Andrews wide open in the slot.

Andrews dribbled around a defender and his rising shot went into the top-right corner of the net for a 2-0 lead.

From there, Trinity rebounded with several nice chances but ran out of time.

“I just said to the boys that I’ve been around the game for a long time and when you score a goal like that, it’s worth the entrance fee,” Knoch head coach Malcolm Cook said of Andrews’ goal. “I don’t care what people pay to get in, but they should be paying double for that goal. It was a special goal. The keeper didn’t even see it. It was in the back of the net before he even blinked.”

The Hillers’ struggles began in the opening minutes of the first half. Every possession was contested at midfielder and often led to a turnover. The Knights created several counter attacks that nearly led to a goal, but Trinity’s defense held them scoreless.

Andrews gathered a lead pass in the penalty box in the seventh minute and had a wide open shot on Johnson, but Trinity junior defender Noah Lazek blocked the chance. Lazek came up with another decisive block minutes later that saved a goal.

Cook’s game plan was simple. Stop the Hillers’ downfield passes and contain sophomore midfielder Alec Belcastro. In the second half, Cook used junior defender Nicholas Kadunce as a man marker on Belcastro and prevented Trinity’s midfielders from finding an open player downfield.

Cook did not mince words when describing his strategy. He saw weaknesses on Trinity and wanted to exploit them.

“I think (Belcastro) is a really nice little player, but he was the only one they had and everyone else was a long ball guy,” Cook said. “So if we shut the long ball down and shut (Belcastro) down, they’re done, which we did.”

Trinity was not outplayed in either half. Johnson came up with several nice saves, senior midfielder Preston Kulla generated chances by finding open teammates up top and Belcastro had several scoring chances, but turnovers proved to be too much for the Hillers to overcome.

“I told (the kids) we got here as a team and we were beaten tonight as a team,” Julian said. “We played until the very last whistle. We took a shot at the very last second knowing that even if you score there, it’s impossible. We’ve shown people we are for real. We have to keep building.”