Racing for the ball are two talented freshmen, Dane Harmaty of Springside Chestnut Hill (left) and Ryan Bradby of Penn Charter. (Photo by Tom Utescher)

by Tom Utescher

In the Pennsylvania Independent Schools soccer tournament, the boys' teams from Germantown Friends School and Springside Chestnut Hill Academy each ended their postseason runs with 1-0 losses in the quarterfinal round last Tuesday.

The sixth-seeded SCH Blue Devils needed only travel a few miles down to Penn Charter for their match. Max Jacobs, a senior headed for Tufts University, scored the lone goal of the game for the number three Quakers, and he would replicate that feat two days later against second-seeded Kiski School to propel PC into this week's championship game.

For their quarterfinal contest last week, the ninth-seeded Tigers of GFS had to go a little farther afield to face the tournament's top seed, Hill School. Germantown's strong defense kept a clean sheet for more than 50 minutes before senior Ryan Wallace scored for the Blues and, as Hill's own "tweet" put it, "Varsity Boys Soccer wins 1-0 over tough GFS Tigers squad."

GFS and SCH had started out the 2016 season by facing one another, battling to a 0-0 standoff. Near the end, both teams advanced out of the opening round of the 16-team PAIS tournament, SCH stopping number 11 Shipley School, 1-0, while GFS got past the eighth seed, Malvern Prep, by the same score.

Within the Inter-Ac League, Springside Chestnut Hill was one of the early leaders, but then got bogged down a bit. In the Indy Schools tournament, the Blue Devils moved through the opening round to get a third crack at Penn Charter, with whom they'd split their two official Inter-Ac games.

In the PAIS quarterfinal bout at PC last Tuesday, the hosts applied most of the offensive pressure for the first 15 minutes or so, although just five minutes in SCH junior Matt Greenberg sent a good serve into the box that did not produce a shot. For a lot of the game, the timing of serves and through balls by the Blue Devils just wasn't quite in sync with the runs of the intended recipients. SCH lacked a key senior scoring threat in Andy Stackhouse, who was serving a red card suspension.

Greenberg's 10th-grade brother, Luke, put a shot over the Quakers' crossbar with 17 minutes left in the opening period, but eight minutes later Charter had the game's lone goal on the board. Jacobs carried the ball a long way down the wing and angled in for a successful shot. The senior later headed a ball off the visitors' crossbar and the half ended at 1-0.

Early in round two the younger Greenberg launched a hard shot that strayed well beyond the left side of the PC cage. A little later, Blue Devils freshman Dane Harmaty booted a 25-yard direct kick straight through the middle into the hands of Quakers keeper Jay Jennings.

Charter freshman Ryan Bradby went to the air when awarded an outside free kick at the other end, and SCH had the ball headed out of danger by junior Michael Buck, who sent a number of dangerous PC balls out of the box over the course of the game.

In the second period the visitors were better able to curtail Penn Charter's scoring chances while increasing their own, but they just couldn't make a scoring connection. They had chances to tie right up until the very end of the match, when a ball served inside from the right flank was volleyed over the goal cage with 15 seconds to go.

Another low-scoring affair had been going on out in Pottstown on Hill School's campus.

The GFS Tigers, with their defensive bulwark based around senior center backs Jeremy Berman and Ray Hill-Cristol and junior goalie Pietro Berghella, had been tied for top spot in the Friends Schools League at the end of the regular season. The two teams also tied in their head-to-head meeting, but there would be no playoff rematch as GFS fell in the FSL tournament semifinals.

Freshman Liem Kleitz and his twin brother Aidan quickly established themselves as important varsity players for GFS this fall. (Photo by Tom Utescher)

Against eventual champ Moorestown Friends, GFS went all the way to the penalty kick phase and actually led 3-1 after three rounds of kicks. Fortunes changed and the Foxes pulled out the victory in the ninth round of PK's. The Tigers rebounded with their victory over Malvern in PAIS play, moving on to face the tourney's number one team.

"Hill has 10 seniors and eight juniors," reported GFS head coach Sam McIlvain, "so they were a big, strong, technically-skilled team. We had three or four good scoring chances against them. We hit a post one time, and their goalie came up with some good saves.

"The kids stepped up, and we actually played better in that game than we did against Malvern," the Tigers' mentor continued. "I think our guys felt proud of their efforts."

The GFS offense had not been at full strength since junior Isaac Myran suffered a season-ending injury at the start of October, but Germantown held the line on defense all the way through. With the exception of a match against Central High School in which the team played its JV goalie,

McIlvain stated "We had 10 shutouts and in all the other games we only gave up one goal."

Although there will be some significant graduation losses, GFS will return a group of young players who saw a lot of varsity minutes this fall.

"I think overall, the kids were excited about how the season went," McIlvain said, " and the younger guys are eager to keep building on that."

Berman, Berghella, Hill-Cristol, and senior A.J. Mowafi were named to the All-Friends Schools League team, with Myran receiving honorable mention.