Oct 27, 2025 By Jerin Steele 4 min read

LEETSDALE – Going into halftime scoreless, there wasn’t any panic for the Bentworth boys soccer team.

For a team that has scored at will this year – 164 goals to be exact- it was an unfamiliar position, but with a slight adjustment and a belief that goals would come the Bearcats broke through in the second half to ensure they’d have an opportunity at a district three-peat.

Ryan Moessner scored with 28 minutes remaining in the second half and Blake Lusk added an insurance marker to give the top-seeded Bearcats a 2-0 victory over No. 4 Beaver County Christian in the WPIAL Class A semifinals Monday night at Quaker Valley’s Chuck Knox Stadium.

The Bearcats (20-0) will go for a WPIAL three-peat against the winner of Monday’s late game between OLSH and Winchester Thurston at Highmark Stadium at a date and time to be announced.

Beaver County Christian (16-3) plays the loser in the consolation game for a spot in the state tournament.

“Not a lot of teams get a chance to go back-to-back let alone win three in a row,” Ryan Moessner said. “We’re really excited about even having the chance, but we can’t get too far ahead of ourselves because (OLSH and Winchester Thurston) are good. We’re just going to have to play our game.”

Monday’s game was a rematch of last year’s semifinal, which Bentworth won 3-0.

Bentworth prodded Beaver County Christian for much of the first half, but couldn’t find a goal. Eagles keeper Michael Lanigan made several key saves, including two on Adam Moessner, who made a couple of nice runs down the left side.

The Eagles came into the match having given up only five goals all season, so they have been tough to crack.

At halftime, Bearcats coach Nick Malarbi and his staff made a slight adjustment to try and open up some more space for his players in the attack and it worked.

“Austin (Hollier) is one of our more physical wingers and he had a tough matchup with (Beaver County Christian defender) Elias Bosch,” Malarbi said. “We decided to shift the play and try to focus on the left side a little more. That started to open stuff up for us.”

Ryan Moessner’s goal came on somewhat of a broken play. The ball was whipped into the Beaver County Christian box, pinballed around and landed at his feet. He quickly took a shot that went into the top right corner of the net.

“The ball came firing in and deflected off one of their defenders and fell right to me,” Ryan said. “I just fired it and put it away.”

Lusk’s insurance marker started with a beautiful switch of play by Adam Moessner.

He had the ball near midfield on the right side and launched a cross all the way to the left side of the field. Lusk won the battle, got a chance to take a shot and put it home to make it 2-0 with just over seven and a half minutes remaining.

Beaver County Christian mounted a challenge a couple of times in the second half, but the Bearcats defenders did a good job keeping the chances to a minimum. Anything that got through was scooped up by keeper Isaac Vipperman.

While Bentworth is known for its scoring prowess, its defense has been equally strong, having yielded only six goals all season. Monday was the Bearcats’ 15th shutout in 21 games.

“Isaac was sharp tonight and the backline was great,” Malarbi said. “Noah (Reynolds) and Dillan (Colbert) were great. Parker Lang, a sophomore, did an amazing job at outside back. We typically put him on the tougher winger’s side and he shows why.”