Butler boys soccer falls behind early, can’t recover in section loss to North Allegheny
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The Butler Golden Tornado boys soccer team fell to North Allegheny 3-0 in a game on Thursday, Sept. 12, 2024, at Butler High School. Rob McGraw/Butler Eagle
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The Butler Golden Tornado boys soccer team fell to North Allegheny 3-0 in a game on Thursday, Sept. 12, 2024, at Butler High School. Rob McGraw/Butler Eagle
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The Butler Golden Tornado boys soccer team fell to North Allegheny 3-0 in a game on Thursday, Sept. 12, 2024, at Butler High School. Rob McGraw/Butler Eagle
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The Butler Golden Tornado boys soccer team fell to North Allegheny 3-0 in a game on Thursday, Sept. 12, 2024, at Butler High School. Rob McGraw/Butler Eagle
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The Butler Golden Tornado boys soccer team fell to North Allegheny 3-0 in a game on Thursday, Sept. 12, 2024, at Butler High School. Rob McGraw/Butler Eagle
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The Butler Golden Tornado boys soccer team fell to North Allegheny 3-0 in a game on Thursday, Sept. 12, 2024, at Butler High School. Rob McGraw/Butler Eagle
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The Butler Golden Tornado boys soccer team fell to North Allegheny 3-0 in a game on Thursday, Sept. 12, 2024, at Butler High School. Rob McGraw/Butler Eagle
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The Butler Golden Tornado boys soccer team fell to North Allegheny 3-0 in a game on Thursday, Sept. 12, 2024, at Butler High School. Rob McGraw/Butler Eagle
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Butler’s Thomas Sheptak and North Allegheny’s Vikas Vaders fight for control during a boys soccer game on Thursday, Sept. 12, 2024, at Butler High School. Rob McGraw/Butler Eagle
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The Butler Golden Tornado boys soccer team fell to North Allegheny 3-0 in a game on Thursday, Sept. 12, 2024, at Butler High School. Rob McGraw/Butler Eagle
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Butler’s Noah Ernst chests the ball for possession during a boys soccer game on Thursday, Sept. 12, 2024, at Butler High School. Rob McGraw/Butler Eagle
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Butler’s Gerick Rekich passes the ball during boys soccer game on Thursday, Sept. 12, 2024, at Butler High School. Rob McGraw/Butler Eagle
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Butler’s Michael Roman takes possession of the ball during a boys soccer game on Thursday, Sept. 12, 2024, at Butler High School. Rob McGraw/Butler Eagle
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Butler’s Maddox McCall heads the ball during a boys soccer game on Thursday, Sept. 12, 2024, at Butler High School. Rob McGraw/Butler Eagle
BUTLER TWP — While it might have appeared to be luck, it was no such thing.
North Allegheny’s Noah Hutter cleaned up a rebound in the third minute of Thursday night’s boys soccer matchup with Butler. Mykola Desysenko was there to capitalize on the Golden Tornado’s botched attempt at gaining possession near the box in the 17th minute.
Hutter scored a second time — two minutes after his first and aided by a William Love assist — before Desysenko’s deposit, adding up to a 3-0 Tigers win in the WPIAL Section 3-4A clash.
“How we build that play, we created that chance,” North Allegheny coach Manuel Montero said of Hutter’s marker. “We had all the guys in the box in good, strategic places for a cutback or for a rebound. Yes, we got a lucky bounce, but we had multiple kids there.”
Butler coach Troy Mohney essentially echoed that statement. The Tigers’ midfield had hemmed the ball in the deep third of the field for extended stretches of the first half.
“I think some of those unlucky bounces ... when you play in your half most of the time, sooner or later there’s going to be a bad bounce that’s not going to go our way,” Mohney said.
The Golden Tornado fell to 2-4-1 on the season, including 0-3 in section contests. North Allegheny moved to 5-2-1 (2-1 section).
“We finally found the back of the net early,” Montero said. “We’ve been starting well most of the season, we just haven’t been scoring — even since preseason. We finally score early and then we can kind of control the game.”
Mohney stressed the seven remaining section games Butler has to his team during his postgame speech.
“When you make the mistakes that we made at the beginning of the game and go down 3-0 to a team like that, it’s going to be a challenge to come back to it,” Mohney said. “We started doing a couple different things throughout the game. I’m still intense with the guys. I’m still trying to get them better in certain areas.
“I thought there were moments that we were able to do some positive things, and those are the things that we’re going to try to work on going forward.”
Chris Rubcic had the Golden Tornado’s best shot at finding the back of the net in the 49th minute, but his try crashed into the right post instead. Rubcic’s straightaway shot on target was absorbed by Tigers goalkeeper Ryan Young five minutes later.
Thomas Sheptak had a would-be goal punched away by Young in the 72nd minute, then Young ate up Maddox McCall’s shot off a free kick with two minutes to play.
