By PAUL GOTHAM
CHURCHVILLE, N.Y. — The last time they met Brighton and Churchville-Chili needed double overtime to decide the 2018 Section V Class A champion. Friday night the two squads played 110 minutes before deciding a semi-final participant with PKs.
All four Churchville-Chili players converted on their opportunities from the 10-yard line, and goalkeeper Zach Main made a pair of spectacular saves as the Saints advanced with a 4-2 win.
“We practice PKs a lot,” Churchville head coach John Mahoney said. “We’ve been doing that as long as I’ve been here. We practice the last four or five weeks of the season. We take two rounds a day. It’s stats. The guys who take ‘em. I don’t care if you’re the 20thman on the roster. If you’re the best PK taker, you’re in the top 10.”
Joe Oliver, Colin Mousseau and Colton McCane connected on their shots before Noah Donner hit the clincher.
Main stopped the first and fourth attempts he faced, both diving to his left for the 4-2 victory.
“He got great reads on both of those,” Mahoney said. “I told him right before he went out ‘all we need is two wins. You make two saves and we win.’”
Churchville (12-5-0) will play Greece Athena in Tuesday’s Class A1 semifinal. The Saints opened the season with three losses in their first four games. Since then C-C is 11-2.
They dropped a pair of decisions to Spencerport (No. 13 NYSSWA Class) as well as single games to Pittsford Sutherland (No. 8 NYSSWA Class A), Wayne (No. 24 NYSSWA Class A) and Webster Thomas. All four of those teams remain alive in the playoffs.
“All five of our losses, none of those teams have a losing record,” Mahoney noted. “They’re all good teams, but it only gets harder from here.”
Peter Barraclough-Tan gave Brighton the lead in the first half, but the Barons (6-10-1), a NYS semifinalist last year, couldn’t maintain the lead.
“Credit to Churchville,” Brighton head coach Adam Hiller said. “They kept fighting in the second half to tie it up. Our defense played phenomenal tonight. It was just one little slip up on their goal. That’s kind of the story of the season. A rebound that nobody cleared.
“Second half we kinda lost a little bit in our midfield. We played really well in the first half. Churchville brought it. We had a couple opportunities in overtime. We just didn’t really cash in. We didn’t string ‘em together.”
Gaven Egan leveled the match with 21:29 remaining. Marcus Postell assisted on the goal leading his teammate on a second-chance opportunity of a free kick from 30 yards out.
Churchville played the entire 30 minutes of overtime without leading scorer Mario Cozzo (9 goals/7 assists) who went down with an injury in the waning moments of regulation.
“We obviously lost something special when he’s not on the pitch. We weren’t as fluid. We weren’t attacking like we can. But the guys showed grit.”
For Main, the win took away some of the sting from last year’s loss.
“I told my team at halftime when we were losing, ‘this is our revenge game. We lost with a minute and 44 seconds left in double overtime last year. We’re not losing to this team again. I’m not ending my soccer career right now.'”
Friday’s win was Churchville fourth straight. When the Saints lost to Brighton last year, they were riding a seven-game win streak and were No. 3 in the state.
“For this year, that felt really good,” Mahoney said of the win. “It doesn’t replace last year. That hurt. There are a lot of seniors on this field from last year. That hurt. We didn’t get over that for a long time.”
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