Wednesday Finals: Seasons end for both Fillmore, Belfast boys as opposition provide shutouts to win Sectional titles in Class D1, Class D2

Written By Chris Brooks

FILLMORE/BELFAST — Wednesday night’s Class D1 Final matchup was nothing short of a clash between two Section V soccer titans. A matchup between two offenses that, combined, have nearly 200 goals worth of offense while giving up 19 on the other end between their defenses.

Both top-seeded Fillmore and second-seeded Keshequa made it all the way to the State Tournament last season, having won Sectional championships at Class D1, and Class C2 respectively along the way to get there. On Wednesday, the two foes met in what was a highly anticipated matchup as members of Class D1 in the Finals with the Indians making the drop down for this season.

The task at hand for the Eagles was trying to hold one of the hottest offenses in Section V in check across 80 minutes of play. But the Indians would not allow that to happen.

Across all phases of the game, Keshequa dominated much of the play on the field, and as a result of it, the Indians were able to find the back of the net twice in the second half, as the pressure build up boiled over after a scoreless halftime tie to go on and win the Class D1 championship with a 2-0 victory over Fillmore.

“I’m just really proud of these guys, what a phenomenal season that they’ve put together. You want to play the best you can to beat the best team out there, and I’m a little torn because I love the challenge of playing Keshequa,” said Eagles coach Jamie Mullen. “They’re one of the best teams in all of Section V and maybe even perhaps the State. Everyone says so. 2-0, we were battling, still taking chances in the box. Honestly, we’re a team that’s heading in a very different direction than they are. They’ve had their moment in the sun, and now it’s our turn. We got two, three years where we’re going to be the dominant team, so I have no discouragement over what happened tonight. You love your seniors to get their time, but they also had theirs last year too. It’s a great season, but we’re going to celebrate this.”

Right from the first kick, the Indians turned up the heat on Fillmore (14-1), picking up a pair of corner kick opportunities with the latter of which nearly squeezed past Dylan Valentine by the far post. It was a recurring theme for Valentine and the Eagles defense through much of the first half to keep the game scoreless going into halftime, as Keshequa garnered multiple opportunities deep in the offensive zone to put the senior goalkeeper to work. Fortunately for the Eagles, Valentine was able to make the stops.

The biggest chance for the Indians came right before halftime when Riley Rease broke away from the Fillmore defense on his way in on goal. Valentine made the rush out to challenge, where he was successful with a big sliding tackle to clear the ball out of harm’s way, and out of the zone.

“I can’t say enough about my fullbacks, those boys went toe-to-toe with two of the best offensive players around,” Mullen said. “Especially in the first half, you could see the frustration come out of the boys, we were starting to take shots from 30 or 35 yards out, and we got in their heads a little bit. That’s what you want to do against a team like that. I was really proud of Brent Zubikowski, Graham Cahill and Alex Ellsworth played a phenomenal game defensively. They don’t miss chances, and it was a good thing for them.”

But the pressure would soon build-up into a head nearly seven minutes in. On a play that the Eagles thought was offside, the Indians broke the ice with Jordon Luther providing the first goal, digging the ball out in the midst of a scrum to poke the ball past Valentine next to the far post on the right side of the field to make it a 1-0 advantage for the second seeds. Reese Powers would be credited with the assist.

10 minutes after the goal, the Indians continued to pound away in the offensive zone with a direct kick forthcoming on Fillmore’s 18. The kick was taken by Luther, where it takes a deflection off the Eagles wall in front and out of play for a corner kick. On the kick recorded by Powers in the corner, Riley Rease managed to place his head on the low kick to tuck it away for a crucial 2-0 lead on the Eagles.

As far as the offensive production, that would be all that Keshequa needed in the end to repeat as champions, as they managed to hold Fillmore in check all game to put away the game for good, handing them their first and only loss of the season.

Keshequa took the advantage altogether in the shots department, as they recorded a 10-4 outscoring over Fillmore. In all, Valentine made eight saves for the Eagles.

The season wraps up for the Eagles in near perfection, as their condensed 2020 season featured a 14-1 record and another Allegany County Division I championship to their showcase to go with another top seed in Class D1 for this year’s tournament. The team will lose just four seniors at the end of the school year in Valentine, Isaiah Voss, Mason Cool and Zach Herring. Mullen commended his seniors on a job well done in their final year, as well as eluded to the bright future ahead for his program.

“We got a future ahead of us, a bright one,” he said. “I started three ninth graders for most of the season. We have some great days coming up in the near future. The seniors gave us everything they had, and they were very critical toward providing us with the success that we’ve had. They didn’t disappoint tonight at all. Mason Cool had the best game of his career tonight, and it’s tough going out there especially against Keshequa. He battled and did some great things, and I was proud of him as well as all the other senior leaders we have.”

Over in Belfast, it was a similar-case scenario for the top-seeded Bulldogs in the Class D2 Finals at the Rich Sullivan Complex. After battling with No. 3 Jasper-Troupsburg for much of the first half of play, both teams would navigate their way toward a scoreless tie to end the first 40 minutes of the battle.

But right from the get-go in the second half, the Wildcats wasted no time getting on the board, scoring the game’s lone goal in the first minute of play to set a tone that allowed them to keep their one-goal lead for good, as they edged past Belfast toward the Class D2 Championship with a 1-0 shutout of the tournament’s top seeds.

Both the Bulldogs (9-4) and Wildcats provided some chances on their respective nets in the first 10 minutes of play, with Jasper-Troupsburg getting the bulk of the chances to force Stephen Struckmann to provide some quality saves. Belfast’s best chance to put the ball away came from Christian Lopez on the rush in on goal, but the ball would sail high and wide of the net with under 10 minutes remaining in the half.

But Jasper-Troupsburg would come out on fire 50 seconds into the new session behind Tyler Flint’s unassisted tally that gave the Wildcats the 1-0 lead they were looking for to receive the upper-hand on the Bulldogs, ultimately for the remainder of the game as they would continue to hold the Bulldogs across the board and off of it to pick up the Class D2 title at the final horn.

The Wildcats doubled up the hosts in red by a 10-5 count in the shots department with Struckmann making nine saves in all for the Bulldogs.

The season is over for Belfast, as they wrap up the condensed season with a record of 9-4. The team will graduate nine seniors altogether at the end of the year in Struckmann, Lopez, Melvin Hamer, Devin Harriger, Nick Ellison, Jason Drozdowski, Chris Fuller, Steven Buchholz and Chase Sadler.

Chris Brooks
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Tuesday Semifinals: Templeton punches return ticket back to D1 Finals for No. 1 Fillmore, scores GWG in 3-2 win over No. 4 Keshequa in double-sudden victory