Four-peat: Moessner’s golden goal gives Bentworth another WPIAL title
Jerin Steele
PITTSBURGH – When a player can rank the golden goals they’ve scored, they are doing something right.
That’s the case for Bentworth junior Adam Moessner.
His latest one, in double overtime, Saturday night sent the Bearcats to a WPIAL four-peat.
Moessner scored with nine minutes remaining in the second extra frame and the top-seeded Bearcats defeated No. 3 Our Lady of the Sacred Heart, 2-1, in the WPIAL Class A championship at F.N.B. Stadium.
“It’s a great feeling,” Moessner said of winning a fourth title in a row. “It’s history. It hasn’t happened in a long time, so it feels great to do it.”
Moessner got the ball in the box, took a touch to create some space and ripped a shot against the grain into the lower right side of the goal to make Bentworth the first boys soccer team to win four straight WPIAL titles since Peters Township did so from 1986-89.
“They messed up a little bit back there and the ball fell to my feet,” Moessner said. “I knew the goalie would be shifting across, so I just put it low corner the other way and he couldn’t get to it in time.”
The Bearcats are only the fourth team to win four in a row in WPIAL history. The senior class will leave as district champions every year of their high school careers.
“These seniors have 59 shutouts in their career have won 91 games in four years and four WPIAL championships and a state championship,” Bentworth coach Nick Malarbi said. “It speaks for themselves. I’m so proud of this senior class. They’ve scored like 480 goals and have let in only like 40 in their careers.”
It is the second golden goal this year for Moessner, who also had one in Bentworth’s 3-2 win over Freedom in the quarterfinals. He also had the golden goal in Bentworth’s 1-0 win over Delco Christian in the state championship last year.
“State championship is probably still No.1,” Moessner said. “But I think this one puts me ahead of (older brother) Ryan (Moessner) for most goals in a year, so that’s a cherry on that one.”
Bentworth has beaten OLSH three straight years in a WPIAL final and done it three different ways. In 2024 the Bearcats won in penalties. Last year they beat the Chargers in regulation and this season it took double overtime.
Before the game-winner, OLSH carried the possession most of the game, but Issac Viperman was strong in goal. He made four saves in the second half, the best coming on a shot from point-blank range in the 58th minute.
“I think we may have been outplayed, but we handled what we needed to handle and that was putting the ball in the back of the net,” Malarbi said.
OLSH came out strong and controlled possession early. They turned that possession into a goal on an excellent individual effort by Caiden Price.
Price received a pass in front of goal, calmly took a touch to get into better scoring position and buried a shot into the bottom right corner to give OLSH a 1-0 lead in the seventh minute.
Bentworth responded with the equalizer nine minutes later.
Austin Hollier put a high cross into the box from the left side and Garrett Allen connected on the other end at the back post. He slammed the ball in from two feet off the goal line and the game was tied.
“I actually think the first goal against us helped us,” Bentworth coach Nick Malarbi said. “It kind of woke us up. The best stretch of play we had was working to get that (tying) goal. Garrett missed a breakaway a few minutes before that, but making up for that back post goal was huge. I don’t know what you’d call it. I guess it was like a ninja kick.”