Wildcats impress in Tri-Valley?League title game

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COCOLAMUS - Jordann Ferguson scored just 55 seconds into Saturday night's Tri-Valley League boys soccer championship game, setting the tone for what would be a dominating performance for Greenwood, which easily won the title in a 6-1 rout of Halifax.

The Wildcats of the Juniata Valley last shared the TVL crown with the same-named team from the Susquehanna's east shore two years ago, but had not won the league outright for more than a decade.

Ferguson, who scored two goals and added a pair of assists - all in the first half - individually was representative of the team's overall effort in a 40-minute span that coach Tom Magill called the best his squad played all year.

Greenwood (16-2) wasn't just winning the game, it was winning everything about the game. The Wildcats won the restarts, won the balls on the ground, won the races between the 30s - actually, between midfield and the Halifax 30, where the vast majority of the contest was played.

"We came out early and took it to them," Ferguson said. I think we caught them off guard and then we kept putting them in, and they lost it. They couldn't come back from it."

Sometimes it was speed and pressure, exemplified by the second goal, a Cody Ruby tally that he just drove up the middle and pounded into the back of the net. Other times it was capitalizing on Halifax keeper Andrew Osenbach's apparent weakness when the ball - or, more accurately, when Osenbach - was on the ground.

That was how Ferguson and Matt Musser scored the third and fourth goals for Greenwood - both on rebounds after Osenbach had a chance at stopping the ball.

The third tally was the result of a direct kick that Halifax was ill-prepared to defend. Confusion on the part of the eastern team led to players lining up out of place when forming a wall against Greenwood; the kick went in and out of the goalie's hands and Ferguson stepped in and put it away. Musser scored on a similar second-effort kick, again because Osenbach, dropping to stop the ball, gave up an easy rebound.

"I thought we were opportunistic," Greenwood coach Tom Magill said. "We talked about the fact that this keeper is good on balls that were up, balls that are down, he's going to give up rebounds."

And, Magill pointed out, "We did get in his face."

"They shift their whole defense to one side and it basically leaves the middle wide open," Ferguson said. "Anything low usually was just bouncing off of him. If you were there, you could put it back easily."

Joe Dreese made it 5-0 when he scored on a crossing play in the final minute of the half. Surprisingly, it could have been worse - Osenbach actually made a few substantial blocks late in the first half against Greenwood's relentless charge.

Greenwood's final tally came just two minutes into the second half on a David Myers penalty kick. Although the Millerstown club maintained control of the ball, Halifax was able to defend as Greenwood substituted numerous players.

Halifax challenged Andrew O'Shura at the other end of the field late in the game, and the Greenwood keeper had to make a few big saves on shots that would have stayed within the frame. Halifax took his shutout away with an opposite-corner shot by Matt Schwalm with 4:32 remaining in the contest.

"Schwalm drifted off to the back of the defense and we didn't see much of him," O'Shura said. "That's what we were worried about today. He wasn't even in the game for most of it."

O'Shura credited the backs with defending well on the occasions they were pressed by Halifax, and said that the win is a good boost for a team getting ready to enter the District 3 playoff bracket.

"It's definitely a joy kick," he said. "They were upset about losing to us 3-0 in the prior meeting. We came out and played hard for the first half, the second half we grilled them again."