GCC leaves no doubt; Charleroi settles for 2nd
CHARLEROI – The Charleroi High School boys soccer team’s dream of a seventh consecutive section championship came to an end Tuesday night with a 9-0 loss to Greensburg Central Catholic, the top ranked team in WPIAL Class A and first-place team in Section 2.
“We started off well and hit a wall,” said Charleroi coach Jon Ducoli. “(GCC) had some really nice-placed free kicks off fouls that swung their way.”
Early on, it appeared that Charleroi (8-2, 13-2) was going to have a fighting chance as the Cougars were controlling play, but when Jake Gretz gave the Centurions (9-0, 12-1) a 1-0 lead on their first shot of the match at the 27:39 mark off an assist from Jackson Vacanti, it changed the momentum on the spot. Charleroi was never able to recover.
“The boys came out hungry and full of heart, and that first goal kind of deflated them,” said Ducoli. “That was the point of when the tides shifted.
“If I’ve said it once, I have said it a thousand times that once you get a good team on their heels, it is hard to be that team and (come back), and tonight we were that team (on the heels).”
GCC doubled its lead with 15:35 to go in the first half when Ky Miller scored, and the Centurions put the game away when they scored twice in a 14-second span in the 28th minute.
Carlo Denis scored with 12:41 left in the half and Miller added his second goal with 12:27 before the break to give GCC a 4-0 lead at the half.
GCC outscored Charleroi 5-0 in the second half.
Miller and Denis finished with hat tricks while Max Szekely added two goals to go along with Gretz’s tally.
The Cougars celebrated Senior Night, and Ducoli spoke about the team’s three seniors, Ty Patterson, Braden Pringle and Alex Marsich.
“Those three hold a lot of weight on this team,” he said. “As we progress through the playoffs, Ty can fill whatever position we need, Pringle is very strong on that back line and Al, we can place him in, and he is a workhorse.”
What will the Cougars take from this loss?
“We take what we did well and make that better, and what we didn’t see, we make sure the boys are able to clarify and look through the smoke and polish that off,” Ducoli said. “We will assess it and put it to work in our next match.”
Charleroi will look to rebound Tuesday when it closes out its regular season by hosting Belle Vernon in a non-section match.
The Cougars are locked into the No. 2 spot in the section standings. Bentworth is third. The WPIAL Soccer Committee will meet Oct. 19 and determine playoff parings.