WAPAKONETA — Temple Christian literally slipped its way to a 2-1 win over Lima Central Catholic in the Division III sectional final on a cold and rainy Thursday night at Harmon Field.
Despite a T-Bird defender dragging Temple Christian’s Cameron Worsham down, the Pioneer controlled the ball enough as he slid on the wet turf and pushed the ball past T-Bird goalie Jack Zerante with 11:19 remaining in the game to get what would turn out to be the game winner. Worsham was set up for the goal by a precision pass from teammate Seth Ward.
With the win the Pioneers advance to the district semifinals against No. 1 seed Continental at Kalida High School at 7 p.m. Tuesday. The T-Birds end their season with a 9-8 record.
Pioneer head coach B.J. McPheron said this was a big win after losing to LCC during the regular season.
“Emotionally we were locked in all week and I told several of the teachers this week that we were going to be ready to play, it was whether we could make the plays,” McPheron said. “I was proud of our guys.”
Worsham’s game winner was his second goal of the game. The talented junior notched the first goal of the contest but this time he got the assist from the post. Worsham found himself in the right place when the Pioneer striker corralled a rebound from a shot that hit the side post that landed right at his feet and he promptly struck it past Zerante at the 9:12 mark.
But the Pioneers had little time to celebrate the goal because LCC got the equalizer from Stephen Taflinger a little more than six minutes later. The senior T-Bird’s goal rocketed a shot, which he received from Connor Knippen, from about 18 yards out to beat Pioneer keeper D.J. Clay who was playing up in attempt to cut off the angle on Taflinger.
The Pioneers came out as the aggressors in the second half and Temple Christian spent the majority of the final 40 minutes on LCC’s side of the field. For the game, Temple Christian had 16 shots on goal compared to LCC which had six.
LCC head coach Gary Tabler said that he thought the T-Birds might have the advantage by taking the wind in the second half but the Pioneers made some adjustments to deal with the wind.
“But they changed some things up and took away the middle of the field where we were most of the first half and we didn’t adjust very well,” Tabler said. “They took away some of our opportunities. We knew how we wanted to attack it with them having a lot of bodies on the field we were going to do some quick switches and try to switch the field but they were just very aggressive and closed on the ball which we knew they would.”
With the less than ideal weather, both goalies had to deal with long shots in hopes the slick ball would not slip through their hands. But true to form both goalies performed well in the less than ideal conditions. Clay and Zerante both recorded four saves, respectively.
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