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WPIAL playoff boys soccer: Peters Township survives Seneca Valley fright to advance to semifinals

PETERS TWP — Seneca Valley gave Peters Township a good scare.

Just ask Bob Dyer.

“Want me to show you my heart rate?” The Indians’ boys soccer coach asked after his team outlasted the Raiders 2-1 in a WPIAL Class 4A quarterfinal playoff game at home on Saturday morning.

Peters Township’s Anthony Maiello helped quell his coach’s anxiety by providing the difference-maker on a 78th-minute rebound. Seneca Valley had a few second-half close calls that would’ve put it ahead.

“Especially in a game like this — against a really high-quality opponent — (if) you get your chances, you either need to get them on goal or get them in goal,” Raiders coach George Williams said. “If you miss those, then the other team is going to get theirs in. ... They had their chances. They finished two of them and we only finished one of ours.

“It’s frustrating, but we had the feeling for a while that it was going to fall for us. We were never able to get it in there.”

Senior Tyler Prex’s header shot floated just wide of the left post in the 50th minute, prompting him to throw his hands to his head. He had another attempt go high three and a half minutes later and two other Seneca Valley shots on goal — one by Zachary Garma — were palmed by Indians goalkeeper Markus Bizyak.

Bizyak’s counterpart, Seneca Valley senior Noah Eastgate, kept the hosts from untying the score with three quick-twitch plays prior to Maiello’s marker.

Related Article: WPIAL soccer playoffs brackets announced: Healthy Seneca Valley girls eyeing run after section title Related Article: WPIAL soccer: Seneca Valley boys soccer dominates Mt. Lebanon in playoff opener, Tyler Prex nets pair

In the 26th minute, he leapt up and pawed away Dante Pusateri’s diagonal shot with his left arm. Twenty minutes later, he dove on a ball put on a platter for Pusateri, and in the 48th minute, he poked away a teammate’s header that could’ve wound up an own goal.

“With every opportunity that you miss, you might not get another one,” Dyer said. “So you’ve got to cherish the one that you have, but you also can’t live in the past. So how do you get those boys to treat that one chance that they might get as important, but then the second they miss it, go back to it? I thought both teams did a good job with that today.”

Senior Mark McConahy netted the Raiders’ lone goal on a 2nd-minute crosser from Prex. Williams knew things were far from over.

“That was one of our prettiest goals of the year, against a team that had only given up a very small handful of goals all season long,” Williams said. “(It) felt great, but we also knew it was very early. We had a lot of game left.”

Jeven Kelly leveled the scoreboard less than three minutes later.

“I obviously think it was very important,” Dyer said. “I think it shows the maturity level of this team for them to stay focused and keep working at it the whole game. I thought both teams did a great job today. I thought it was a very entertaining game.”

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