In an aerial battle with Hill School's Aidan Sullivan, Penn Charter freshman Anthony Ciarrocchi (right) strains to get his head on a ball. (Photo by Tom Utescher)

by Tom Utescher

It turned into a long night when the boys of third-seeded Penn Charter met number one Hill School last Wednesday in the championship game of the Pennsylvania Independent Schools soccer tournament.

Through 80 minutes of regulation play and 10 minutes of overtime, a 0-0 tally was kept on the board by the two senior goalies, Jay Jennings of the Quakers and Aiden Perry of the Hill School Rams. After two five-man rounds of penalty kicks, the issue was still unresolved.

Finally, when Hill's 13th shooter found the net and PC's didn't, the Pottstown platoon became the 2016 PAIS champion.

Penn Charter still ended its season with something that Hill and both of the girls' PIAS finalists lacked: a league championship. The previous Saturday, a 2-0 verdict at Germantown Academy in their Inter-Ac season swansong put the Quakers in sole possession of the 2016 title. Penn Charter had last worn the crown in 2010, with Haverford School winning five straight after that.

In the PAIS tournament, Hill was victorious in 2013 and 2014, but last fall the Rams were knocked out by Penn Charter in the quarterfinals.

In the following round, PC fell to eventual champ Haverford.

The waypoints on PC's path to the 2016 Indy Schools finals were a 2-1 victory over 14th-ranked Barrack Hebrew Academy in the initial round of 16 and then a pair of 1-0 victories over sixth-seeded Springside Chestnut Hill Academy and second-seeded Kiski School in the quarterfinals and semifinals.

Hill School had finished with a record of 2-3 within its own Mid-Atlantic Prep League, which was won by Peddie School this year. In the PAIS tournament, the closest game Hill played before last week's final ended in 1-0 decision over ninth-seeded Germantown Friends in an October 8 quarterfinal contest. The Rams had bounced the 16th seed, Phelps School, by a 5-0 count in the opening round, and in the semifinals they overcame number 12 Haverford School, 4-2.

Last Wednesday Hill made the first few offensive forays in the final game, but soon several Penn Charter charges were led by Max Jacobs, who attracted the attention of the Rams' defense from the get-go.

The PC senior, who will head to Tufts University next fall, saw a through pass get a little too far ahead of him about six minutes into the game, and the ball was gathered up by Hill goalie Aiden Perry. Also a senior, Perry is a boarding student who actually comes from a Massachusetts town less than 10 miles from Tufts.

A little later, a run up the right wing by the Quakers resulted in a corner kick from the left, but on the restart Hill's Perry grabbed the airborne ball in the center of the box.

In the middle of the opening period the Rams sent a nice pass across the Penn Charter 18, only to see the ball cleared out by junior Connor Sullivan. Along with senior Conrad Williams, Sullivan has provided a reliable bulwark in front of netminder Jennings all season long. Williams, playing against the "Rams" on this occasion, will be playing for the University of Rhode Island Rams in college.

After more chances for both teams but no goals, the half ended with the tally still 0-0. The Quakers attacked at the dawn of the second period. The opposing keeper, Perry, deflected the ball away from the cage at the end of a run by Jacobs and then saved another Charter shot soon after that.

Just over five minutes in, PC earned a free kick around five yards outside the middle of the 18-yard line. After Williams chipped the ball over Hill's defensive wall, the Quakers could not get a man to the ball in front of the cage in time to launch a close-range shot.

With almost 10 minutes elapsed, PC's Jennings charged out to scoop up a through ball before Hill's frontrunner could reach it, and a little later what might have been a dangerous cross by the Rams was hit too hard and the sailed well past the front of the Quakers' cage.

Before long, Jacobs rushed toward the Hill goal once again. Without anyone making supporting runs to help him, the senior eluded one defender about 25 yards out, but two more swept in behind to halt his progress. On another assault by the Tufts recruit, the ball went out over the endline off of Hill, but Charter was unable to generate a shot directly off of the corner kick.

With two dozen minutes remaining in regulation play, Hill blasted a dangerous shot just over the Quakers' crossbar. PC earned a corner at the other end, but after a serve inside, a header tracked wide of the cage.

In the last 20 minutes, it was clear that fatigue was becoming a factor for the Quakers. They still made the occasional charge on the offensive end, but mostly these were purely solo efforts and the attacker found himself outnumbered three or four-to-one.

"What Hill School did tonight on defense was tremendous," commented PC head coach Bob DiBenedetto, "They did a great job on Max, and Max was out of gas, too. I mean, we're 26 games in and we had a big one on Saturday.

"We had a tough road," the coach continued. "We played a Barrack team that was way more talented than their seed, we had to play our local rival, SCH, and then we had to go out to Pittsburgh. Two days after that we played for our league championship and then we played the number one seed in this tournament."

Injuries during the 2016 season made Charter a side without a great deal of depth. Relatively early, two defenders were knocked out with season-ending injuries. On October 14, in the last contest the Quakers would lose until the PAIS final, a third back went down early in a 3-2 setback at Springside Chestnut Hill Academy. This was sophomore Billy Melnick, who returned to the line-up one game before last week's title bout, playing in the semifinal out at Kiski.

Illness affected the Quakers at the tail end of the season, also. One of the team's talented freshmen tried to play in the finals, but had to be taken off the field, and sophomore back E.T. Cripe had just returned after being out with a fever.

Hill, a strong, experienced squad with 19 seniors and juniors on the roster, was on the attack much of the time in the final quarter of regulation play. The Rams got nothing out of a corner kick with 17 minutes left, then had a header stray wide to the left off of a free kick.

After another long serve that sent the ball into mitts of Jennings, the Charter keeper made an unsuccessful dive to stop a right-to-left shot by Hill, but fortunately for PC the ball's path took it inches outside the left post. The Rams missed on the right on a free kick with 10 minutes remaining, and then a high shot was knocked down by Jennings near the left post.

After a Penn Charter player was penalized with a yellow card with six minutes to go, Hill sent in a serve in the air and got a header, but Jennings was able to grab the ball.

PC's skipper, DiBenedetto, saw that his players were becoming physically drained after more than an hour of roaming the expanse of Immaculata's unusually wide pitch.

Later he related, "To be honest, the last 15 minutes of the second half I was looking to get into overtime, and get through that and go to shootouts. They were controlling the play late in the second half. We had some guys in there who played more soccer this year than they have in their whole lives."

The encounter extended into overtime play, which took the form of two five-minute periods with no "golden goal" provision. With both teams taking a defensive approach, there were few scoring threats here, and penalty kicks would be needed to break the deadlock.

Hill School had at least one defender close to the Quakers' Max Jacobs (left, with ball) at all times. (Photo by Tom Utescher)

The first round of PK's followed the standard best-of-five format in which a team wins if its running total of successful kicks can no longer be matched by its opponent. Sullivan, fellow junior Andrew Morris and freshman Jude Schorr-Parks all made their kicks as each club converted three of its first four attempts.

PC's keeper, Jennings, made a save on Hill's fourth shot, a low ball to the right side (from the shooter's viewpoint). After Hill's fifth man scored, PC's Jacobs got Hill's Perry moving toward the left post and deposited the ball on the right side to end the first round in a 4-4 draw.

Five new shooters now stepped up to the mark in what was now a golden goal session that allowed for an equal number of attempts by each squad. This time all ten shots went in, with sophomores Cripe and Melnick, senior Christian Lemmo, junior Matt Kestenbaum, and senior Dylan Schwartz in the firing order for the Quakers.

Throughout the entire penalty kick procedure, almost none of the shooters nailed a corner or even put the ball very close to a post, but they didn't need to because the goalies launched themselves in the wrong direction most of the time.

Obviously, the eventual winners would be happier than their rivals, but as the shootout moved into its third stage everyone just wanted a conclusion to be reached one way or the other.

As DiBenedetto said afterwards, "Nobody walked off the field disappointed. By the time we got to the 10th shooter, we were laughing and joking around. It is what it is at that point. It's not a great way to end a tournament like this, but you have to have a winner."

As in the first two sessions, the Rams went first in the third round, and here each team was now allowed to use individual players a second time. Hill School's first three shooters all hit the mark, but after Williams and Sullivan each buried a ball in the left side of the Rams' pen, Perry blocked a Charter shot aimed toward the right, and the contest was over.