Oct 4, 2018 4 min read

CANONSBURG – Fourteen different players for the Canon-McMillan High School boys soccer team have scored a goal so far this season.

It’s all been because they’ve bought into the message Larry Fingers has embraced in his eighth season as the Big Macs’ coach.

“We over me,” Fingers said of the motto. “It’s a fun group to come out and coach because each and every game you don’t know who is going to be the guy to have an impact that night.”

Canon-McMillan embodied the idea of everybody contributing Thursday night.

Steven Dowling added to the list of Big Macs to score this year as he netted a big opening goal, and three others found the net for Canon-McMillan as it knocked off first-place Upper St. Clair, 4-1, to tighten the race atop Section 2-AAAA.

The win for Canon-McMillan (8-2, 11-2) narrows the Panthers’ lead in the section to a half game. Both teams have a pair of section games remaining.

“I have been here for eight years and all section wins are good,” Fingers said. “(Winning big games) is something we’ve turned from a big thing into just the expectations. I think we are as good or better against whoever we play. We came out and competed, and if we compete well enough then we expect to win games.”

The goal from Dowling in the 25th minute came when he buried a shot from less than five yards out into a yawning net on the rebound of a Joey Fonagy shot to give C-M a 1-0 lead.

Just under eight minutes before halftime, the Big Macs doubled their lead when USC was called for a handball in the box, which led to Tommy Samosky finding the lower left-hand portion of the net on a penalty kick.

“We played their game instead of our game,” said Upper St. Clair coach Uwe Schneider. “We played long balls and way too fast. The first two goals were unlucky, but we weren’t playing well tonight. We couldn’t possess the ball like we normally do.”

But unlike when Canon-McMillan surrendered a lead in the first matchup between these two teams – the Big Macs lost 3-2 Sept. 15 – Fingers demanded his team’s mentality of sitting on a lead to change.

Less than five minutes into the second half it did. A long throw from Tommy Samosky trickled around a crowd of players around the near-side post and eventually found the body of Christopher Viveros to give the Big Macs a 3-0 lead.

“We are kind of learning as we grow,” Fingers said. “We have been up most of our games this year, including the two games we ended up losing. We were sitting on the lead and just trying to hold it. We weren’t going to sit on a lead. We were going to go out in the second half and get after it.”

Fonagy scored the final of four goals in the 54th minute, picking the pocket of an Upper St. Clair defender and winning a one-on-one by sliding it under diving Panthers’ goalkeeper Nate Murphy.

It was the first time Upper St. Clair (8-1-1, 8-3-2) surrendered four goals in a game since Aug. 7 against Erie Cathedral Prep in the Pine-Richland tournament, which also was the Panthers’ last loss. They had five straight wins entering Thursday.

Upper St. Clair had a few opportunities spoiled in the first half, including several in which Big Macs goalkeeper Alex Hilbert only needed to watch the ball sail wide.

Ben Burlovic bounced a ball off the outside of the right side of the net on a shot less than 10 yards away. With 25 minutes remaining in the first half, USC’s Collin Sibley missed the crossbar by only a few feet on a straightaway free kick from the 15-yard line. The Panthers then had a pair of corner kicks in the final six minutes of the half that were unsuccessful.

“They didn’t outplay us or anything. We just gave up goals that we shouldn’t be giving up. I turned around to my assistant at the beginning of the second half and said if (Canon-McMillan) gets the third one that it was over. (Our team) was thinking that when we win here, we win the section. But you have to work really hard if you want to win a game here at Canon-Mac. They weren’t ready for that tonight.”