Bentworth switches goalkeepers for shootout, gets past OLSH to repeat as WPIAL champs

By: Liam Belan
Friday, November 1, 2024 | 12:31 AM

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After 110 minutes of soccer couldn’t decide a winner in Thursday night’s WPIAL Class A boys soccer championship between No. 1 Bentworth and No. 3 Our Lady of the Sacred Heart, Bentworth coach Nick Malarbi elected to make an interesting decision heading into penalty kicks.

Andrew Vipperman had played in the field for the majority of the match for the Bearcats, but he actually plays goalkeeper for his Century Gold club team. So he was thrust into goal for the spot kicks instead of DJ Hays, who had been in goal the entire match.

Vipperman scored the first penalty kick of the shootout and saved two shots, including one off of OLSH’s Isaac Tarbuk that won the match for Bentworth, 1-0 after a 5-4 advantage in penalty kicks.

“DJ has been rock solid for me back there, but Andrew just has a little bit more spring and range to him,” Malarbi said. “And honestly, it was a curveball. They’re thinking they’re getting DJ in goal, and then it’s Andrew, so that was a curveball, and we can’t say it didn’t help.”

Vipperman went into goal wearing his brother Issac’s jersey.

“We were talking about doing it earlier, and it worked,” Vipperman said. “There was some rustiness because I haven’t been a goalie since cup season … but it was fun. I’m glad I could win a second one for my team and for my school.

“The community really helped push us towards this win. If they weren’t here, we might not have played as hard.”

The Bentworth (19-0) faithful showed up well on Halloween night as they willed the team to its second straight WPIAL title and second that was settled after regular time.

For as much jubilation as they felt, there was just as much frustration from the Chargers (15-3) after they played a strong match but were hindered by a questionable red card for dissent on Brady Hernandez with 13:47 left in regular time.

“They said it was for swearing, but all 22 players on the field do it constantly,” said OLSH coach Nick Romano. “Why are you going to give a straight red card for that in these circumstances, in a WPIAL final?

“I think that the WPIAL needs to do a much better job training the referees. I actually went up to some of the WPIAL personnel before the match and let them know that we’ve been battling these issues all season long, and it needs to be recognized. It’s not fair that a lot of these guys just study a book and think they can ref a WPIAL final.”

At the same time, Romano expressed how proud he was of his team as it battled for a goal until the very end.

“I’m so proud of them,” he said. “I think if that match could have gone another 30 minutes, we might have been able to squeak out a victory. We were still generating some chances down to 10 men.”

Vipperman stepped up and took the first penalty kick and made no mistake about it with a hard shot to the bottom left corner of the goal to make it 1-0 in favor of the Bearcats.

Things got better for Bentworth when Holland Cobourne sent the first penalty for the Chargers over the crossbar to give the eventual victors an early advantage in the shootout.

Up next was Adam Moessner, who sent a ball into the left side of the net as OLSH goalkeeper Patrick Altmar dove the other way. The goal put Bentworth up 2-0 before Aaron Callahan got the Chargers on the board with a great take into the upper right corner of the net.

At 2-1, Bentworth’s leading scorer in Ryan Moessner stepped up, and everyone expected him to bury his chance after starring in his team’s WPIAL championship win last year. Instead, he slipped while he was striking the ball and sent a light effort that was saved by Altmar.

This gave OLSH an opening, and Owen Minzer took advantage of it with another good penalty kick to the right side of the net to even things up at 2-2 after three of five takers for each team.

Both goalkeepers came up with saves on the next two penalties as Aidan McMurray had a slow roller saved by Altmar while Peter Zink was denied on a diving save from Vipperman to keep it even.

After Dillan Colbert and Seth Therrien converted, the teams were tied at 3-3 and had to send out five new penalty takers. Billy Moyer’s goal was matched by Andre Kolocouris, but Isaac Reynolds’ goal for Bentworth ended up winning the district championship after Vipperman denied Tarbuk.

“I never imagined myself scoring the winning goal in the WPIAL final, but I’ve been looking for this goal all year,” Reynolds said. “It was great to finally get it. I’ve been working on this same shot for the last two weeks, so I wanted to block out all the noise and focus on the ball.”

He did just that, and he captured another title for the Bearcats.

“We hate penalty shootouts, but the kids stepped up and got the win,” Malarbi said. “We’re so thankful that we came out on top.”

Up to this point, the Bearcats cruised to their second-straight WPIAL championship appearance, beating three opponents by a combined score of 17-0. After defeating No. 16 California, 11-0, in the first round, Bentworth dispatched of No. 9 Trinity Christian and No. 4 Beaver County Christian, 3-0. Now, Bentworth will look forward to Tuesday’s state playoff match against District 6 champion Westmont Hilltop.

“I’m really happy for the kids,” Malarbi said. “They’ve worked so hard for this. We didn’t give up a goal in the entire month of October, so that speaks to how well we’ve played.”

The Chargers went through No. 14 Freedom with a 1-0 overtime win in the first round of the playoffs before prevailing against No. 6 Springdale in penalty kicks (1-1, 3-0 PK). To book its trip to Highmark, OLSH beat No. 7 Eden Christian, 1-0, on Tuesday at Canon-McMillan.

Moving forward, the Chargers will take on District 9 champion Brockway.

“I learned about their resilience tonight,” Romano said. “They really locked in, even when they went down to 10 men, they were able to get us this far and come up just short.”

Tags: Bentworth, Our Lady of the Sacred Heart