With the ball at his feet but off-balance, PC's Max Jacobs (left) tries to steady himself and grabs the jersey of SCH's Luke Greenberg. (Photo by Tom Utescher)

by Tom Utescher

With the Inter-Ac League still in the first stage of its customary double round of boys' soccer matches, teams are not widely separated in terms of their win/loss records, as they may be later on.

When Penn Charter arrived at Springside Chestnut Hill last Friday afternoon with a 1-1-1 mark in league play (worth four points in the standings), the Quakers had a chance to overtake the Blue Devils, who came in with six points stemming from a 2-1 record.

For a time, it looked like PC might achieve that objective, starting the game with an aggressive approach and enjoying a 2-1 lead at the half thanks to a pair of goals by senior striker Max Jacobs. In between Jacobs' two strikes, senior Andy Stackhouse had gotten Springside Chestnut Hill on the board.

In the second half the Blue Devils dialed up their work rate to first tie the game on another Stackhouse shot, and then win it, 3-2, with a goal by sophomore Phil Burckhardt with 16:25 remaining in the game.

It was the first match of the week for both teams. In earlier Inter-Ac contests, SCH defeated Germantown Academy and PC beat Malvern Prep, while against Haverford the Blue Devils notched a win and the Quakers came away with a tie. Both Charter (4-5-2 overall) and Springside Chestnut Hill (6-3-2) suffered 2-0 losses to Episcopal Academy.

While SCH and PC were dueling on Friday, Germantown Academy got back to 2-2 in the league, receiving goals from Frank Koons and Zander Folglia to hand visiting Episcopal (3-1) its first Inter-Ac loss. This helped the Blue Devils climb back into a tie for first place with the Churchmen as both squads finished the week with nine points.

In the third Inter-Ac booting bout last Friday, Malvern Prep, which had been tied with PC in the standings, rose to 2-1-1 with a 1-0 victory over defending league champ Haverford School (0-3-1).

At SCH, according to Charter head coach Bob DiBenedetto, "We were the better team in the first half, and they were the better team in the second. We didn't get enough goals in the first half to make up for what they did later on."

The Quakers made the majority of early attacks and got on the board with eight minutes and 49 seconds elapsed. Jacobs, who plans to play college soccer at Tufts University, brought the ball in toward the left post and SCH sophomore keeper Owen Elliott came over to block his first attempt to score. The ball only rolled a few feet away though, and Jacobs' second effort allowed him to jab it across the goal line.

Near the middle of the period, SCH began to spend time inside the Penn Charter 18, and from the right side of the box Stackhouse headed the ball into the far side of the Quakers' cage. There was 21:28 to go in the half at this point, and the 1-1 tie would hold up for less than three minutes. PC pushed up the field looking to retake the lead, drawing a foul a little outside the center of the 18-yard line.

Preparing for the resulting free kick for the Quakers, the Blue Devils centered their five-man defensive wall in front of where the ball had been placed for the shooter, Jacobs. However, this allowed him open lines to shoot directly toward either the far left or far right side of the goal. The senior fired high on the right and the visitors were back in front, 2-1.

That lead held up until halftime, but Penn Charter had seen junior Griffin Barnes come off the field with a foot injury. It turned out there was a broken bone, and Barnes would join sophomore Billy Melnick, who had suffered a season-ending injury earlier in the 2016 campaign.

"We have two other kids who have some ongoing problems," DiBenedetto revealed, "so we're basically down four guys."

In SCH's halftime huddle, skipper Brian Zalasky was trying to light a fire under his squad.

He felt the team hadn't put forth its best effort in its previous Inter-Ac outing at Episcopal, and he revealed, "Our talk at halftime was that we were lacking that energy again. We improved in the second half, and overall we had a better work ethic than we did a week ago. You want to be fired up, but it can't be all just emotion - you have to keep your mental focus at the same time."

Just a few minutes into the second half, Blue Devils sophomore Peter Kapp sent a long shot on the ground toward the right post, and the ball was saved by Charter's senior goalie, Jay Jennings. Not long after that another SCH shot from junior Luke Vogelman slanted high and wide to the right. Eight minutes in at the opposite end, the Blue Devils' Elliott advanced out of the cage to stop a rush by the Quakers.

Still, the 2-1 halftime tally stayed on the board almost up to the middle of the period. Springside Chestnut Hill tied the match a second time with 21:14 left on the ticker. On the right wing, freshman Dane Harmaty got the ball forward to sophomore Phil Burckhardt, and on a sequence that resembled a corner kick restart, Burckhardt airmailed the ball to the far post, where Stackhouse closed in to score off his head.

PC's DiBenedetto had seen enough of opposing teams finding attackers open in the middle of the field.

That evening he noted, "We've now given up five balls like that in the same spot, and that can't happen. We talk about it all the time. We have to have our guys recognize when they have to pick up an open player, even if it's not the guy they're assigned to mark. I've already watched the game tape and on one of their goals we had three guys without a mark."

On an aerial serve to the mouth of the SCH goal, Blue Devils Michael Buck (left) and Jack Myers (center) try to keep the ball away from the head of Penn Charter's Andrew Morris (right). (Photo by Tom Utescher)

A few minutes after the Blue Devils tied it up at 2-2, they had a shot up the middle by Vogelman denied by Jennings, but they would soon find the Quakers' net a third time.

In a transition situation, SCH mentor Zalasky narrated, "Malcolm Glendinning came from right back and dribbled the ball through two or three guys and passed it."

The senior had been shifted toward the defensive end to help shore up things in the back for the Devils, but was able to advance the ball through the midfield and find Burckhardt, who drove in toward the right post and angled a shot into the far side of the goal.

"Their counterattack is very good," stated Quakers commander DiBenedetto. "Andy Stackhouse is playing great for them, and the young kid up front, Dane, does a nice job."

The scoreboard now showed a 3-2 SCH lead and that figure would remain there, although Charter had a few chances to tie and the hosts had some opportunities to add an insurance goal going down the stretch. The Quakers had Jacobs carry the ball in from the right flank with 10 seconds to go, but his charge was halted by junior Mike Buck of the Blue Devils.

Referring to the five-minute span in which his team scored the tying goal and the game winner, SCH's Zalasky said, "That's a snippet of what we're capable of doing all the time, if we apply ourselves."

The Blue Devils were back atop the league along with the EA Churchmen, but Zalasky didn't want them looking very far down the road.

"I emphasize to the guys that the way this league is, we just want to focus on the game at hand," he explained. "If we go on from here thinking that the title's going to be decided between us and Episcopal, we're going to lose to somebody else."