CCHS stays unbeaten
WHEELING — The Catholic Central boys’ soccer team made a statement against Linsly.
The top-seeded Crusaders cruised to a 7-1 victory over the third-seeded Cadets in the OVAC Class 1A/3A Tournament Final Saturday morning at Wheeling Island Stadium.
“It means a lot. It really does,” Catholic Central (10-0) head coach Steve Kopcha said. “We take a lot of pride in representing Catholic Central, and putting forth a good effort on the field. We had a good effort today.”
The win gave Catholic Central its second-straight OVAC Tournament title. They beat Linsly, 3-2, in overtime last season.
“They all feel good,” Kopcha said. “It was a different game last year. The game went into overtime last year. This game had that feel in the first half. It was a very-close game. We were able to pull away in the second half. We were able to create opportunities, and we capitalized on them.”
The Crusaders scored two goals in the first half before erupting for five goals in the second half. The boys from Jefferson County netted their seven goals on just 10 shots on goal.
“This is something we strive to do,” Kopcha said. “We want to get to this game, and we want to win the OVAC title. We are thankful and fortunate we were able to do that. I am proud that we were able to do that.”
Junior Mikey Irvin recorded a hat trick and dished out an assist. Dante Asci collected two goals, and Tom Beigel and Joe Zinno each tallied one. Ethan Moore, Kolbe Rice, Joe Kuebler and Beigel all contributed an assist. Austin Fowkes finished with seven saves in goal.
Manuel Suita tallied the lone goal for the Cadets off of an assist by Mitchell Marhefka. Chaz Gaphery made three saves.
“We played very well,” Linsly (7-7) head coach Eric Fries said. “I thought we had more opportunities in each half than they did. I thought we outplayed them for the first 15 minutes of the first half and for all of the second half. They just scored goals, and we didn’t.”
Catholic Central outshot Linsly, 14-10.
“I have nothing against Linsly,” Kopcha said. “Linsly is a great team. I think we just had more depth than they did today. We were able to sub more guys into the game.
“We didn’t necessarily stop their top guys, but we were able to contain their key guys.
“We are excited. The kids have worked hard. I wanted this to be a positive outcome for us today.”
Irvin opened the scoring with 35:48 left to play in the first half.
The Crusaders later took advantage of a defensive miscue by the Cadets. Zinno sent the ball into the penalty box and a Linsly defender attempted to clear the ball out of harm’s way, however, the ball bounced off of his foot and ended up going into the net for a 2-0 Central lead.
“The kids were excited to play,” Kopcha said. “We treated it just like we do every other game. Linsly is a quality opponent.”
As he had done in the first half, Irvin scored a goal early in the second half to put Catholic Central firmly in control and he did not wait long to tack on his third goal of the game.
Irvin found the back of the net again to put Catholic Central out in front, 4-0, with 31:33 still showing on the scoreboard clock.
Beigel made it 5-0 with 28:46 left to play in the game.
Asci scored back-to-back at the 21:43 and 10:16 marks.
“Eric does a tremendous job with them,” Kopcha said. “They are very-well coached. They are bigger and more physical this year than they were last year. They were able to keep possession by using their size. They still are very skillful. There are a lot of positive things about them.”
Suita put the Cadets on the scoreboard with 6:49 left to play. Suita’s goal came after Catholic Central was called for a foul in the penalty box and Linsly was awarded an indirect kick inside the box.
“The last couple of years they have really been good games whenever we have played them,” Fries said. “They just finished better. They scored a couple of goals, and our heart goes out. If we could have scored on a couple more of our chances, the battle would have continued.
“I am proud of the guys. They played awesome. They played the way we wanted them to.
“We have sophomores playing up top. We have a senior, and this is his first year playing. We are trying to make goals.
“We are the walking wounded. We truly are. We started the season with 11 players. We have 19 now because we got some guys to come out and play.
“We are going to work hard to make it back here next year.”
Linsly hosts Weir at 5 p.m. Tuesday.
Catholic Central heads to Oak Glen at 5 p.m. Thursday.
“It is very exciting to be able to do this,” Kopcha said. “Our goals still have not changed. They are going to remain the same. We want to do the very best we can do, and hopefully we can come back next year and do it again.”
Morgantown defeated University, 3-2, in the Class 5A Final.
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