Valley Sports ReportHEPBURNVILLE — Athens scored twice in the first 10 minutes and earned a berth in the District 4, Class 3A championship game with a 3-1 win over Montoursville here Saturday afternoon at the Balls Mills Soccer Complex.
Second-seeded Athens, now 12-5-2, will square off with top-seeded Midd-West (17-2) Wednesday at 5 p.m. at Milton High School for the District 4 title.
"A great win by the boys to keep our season alive," said Athens coach Travis Reynard, who has directed the Wildcats to the Class 3A title game in each of his first two years as coach.
"We started off fast and dominated in all aspects of the game, which is something we pushed the players to do," he noted. "We have to continue to find ways to keep the intensity up and not lose momentum as the game goes on.
"In the end, we were able to handle the pressure and get the result we wanted," added Reynard.
Sophomore Caden Brennan, off a feed from senior Kamdyn Wheeler, scored to give the Wildcats a 1-0 lead with 33:21 remaining in the first half.
Less than three minutes later, junior Ben Krissler, off a junior Patrick Umber assist, scored to make it 2-0 with 30:46 left in the half.
Montoursville got on the board with 17:37 remaining in the half to close the gap to 2-1, and the Wildcats maintained the one-goal advantage for more than 41 minutes.
With 16:32 remaining in the contest, Umber scored an insurance goal for the Wildcats to provide the final margin.
"Our offensive play and ability to move the ball and switch the field was crucial to the success today," said Reynard. "We were composed and finished the chances we needed to finish.
"We need to continue to be creative and find new ways to break down the opponents," he added.
Athens had an 8-6 edge in shots-on-goal and Montoursville had a 7-1 advantage in corner kicks.
Senior Zach Fisher had five saves in net for the Wildcats.
"Defensively, it was a story of two halves," said Reynard. "We made some errors in the first half that shouldn’t have happened, but after halftime our defensive positioning all over the field was great and our back line held strong and took control."
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PHOTOS 1-16 BY MATT PATTON ... PHOTOS 17-24 BY LORRIE GOMBOCZ.
