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Arrive’s hat-trick not enough for Tigers

East Juniata ties game in second half

Sentinel photo by JEFF FISHBEIN
East Juniata's Chris Nipple (19) beats Sullivan County's Jalen Thomas on a ball during Tuesday's District 4 Class A first-round game at Loyalsock Township. Moving in on the play are Tigers Brandon Marker, left, and Gannon Ryan.

WILLIAMSPORT — East Juniata spent a good bit of time in front of Sullivan County’s goal.

But the Tigers gave up two costly goals early in the game, and despite a successful comeback to tie Tuesday’s District 4 Class A first-round boys soccer game, the Northern Tier team advanced on a 4-3 victory.

Brian Lewis scored the go-ahead goal for the Griffins with not quite 15 minutes left in the game, and Sullivan County packed the box to preserve the margin.

Although East Juniata continued to attack the net, only one play came really close to making the score even again, and that came barely more than a minute after Lewis’ goal.

On that play, the Tigers’ Carles Arrive brought the ball in from the goalie’s right, but instead of trying to pound it past the keeper — as he had done earlier in the game — he sent this one across the front of the goal to Tyler Kerstetter.

Griffins’ goalie Owen Schweitzer made it back into position for the play and the score still favored his team.

“That’s unselfishness there, and I’m glad for that. It makes it easy for other players to score,” East Juniata coach Mike Ryan said. “Unfortunately, Tyler Kerstetter couldn’t stick that ball in the back of the net there.”

Ryan said Arrive, an exchange student from Spain, took on a crucial role in the game.

“He’s our exchange student, he really brings something extra to the team,” Ryan said. “There’s a lot of others kids that have stepped into the role that he did tonight, but he did really well. I’ve been challenging him the past couple weeks and he responded.”

Had the ball gone in, it would have been the first goal in the game scored by someone other than Lewis or Arrive. Instead, the two snipers left the field with seven tallies between them.

Sullivan County used its speed early in the game to post a lead it held through the first half. Lewis’ first two goals both came on breakaways, both in the first 10 minutes of play. He was able to go one-on-one with Tiger goalie Andrew Hunter right up the middle, and there was little Hunter could do to prevent those scores.

“I didn’t expect the speed that I saw from (Lewis). (Lewis) had a breakaway — two of them, actually — and I switched formations as quickly as I thought necessary,” Ryan said. “In the end, that’s what beat us — the other goals were goals that should be scored.

“Those two breakaways, those were hard to swallow. That was the only time this year we really had breakaways against us.”

Lewis almost had a hat trick by the 30-minute mark, but East Juniata’s changes were enough to slow his attack and force the Griffins to play more in the center of the field. And it was clear that the Tigers were the better team there.

Midway through the half, East Juniata got on the board when Arrive was able to move up from the side and dash a shot into the net.

That cut the lead to a goal, where it stayed until the 30th minute of play. Lewis got his third goal, this time moving more across the field than up it. He was defended all the way, but got past Hunter and made the score 3-1, where it stood at the half.

The tie came on two more angle shots by Arrive, who cut the gap in the first minute after intermission and then put away another one three minutes later.

“It wasn’t, like, a really beautiful goal,” Arrive said of his scoring efforts. “It was like the goalie refused the ball and I shot it. But it counts. I’m happy that I can help my team.”

“The idea was to come back and play from the midfield with runs from the midfield. That’s exactly what happened. Unfortunately, they adjusted for that pretty quickly,” Ryan said. “We had a lot of longer shots that half. Hey, we were generating shots. But nothing that could beat the keeper there.”

Despite a bounty of opportunities as the game wore on, it was Lewis who got the game winner out of the knot.

The Tigers (7-9-2) — the only team that entered the bracket with a sub-.500 record — proved their late-season improvement was no fluke by giving the No. 2 seed all it could handle. East Juniata led in shots by a scant 11-10, but the chances were good.

It will still be something positive for Arrive to take back to his homeland.

“We did very well during the season. We grew like a team,” he said. “I’m very happy that I can meet all the players and have this experience.”

Sullivan County 4, East Juniata 3

First half

SC–Brian Lewis, 36:13; SC–Lewis, 33:57; EJ–Carles Arrive, 19:32; SC–Lewis, 10:53.

Second half

EJ–Arrive, 39:24; EJ–Arrive, 36:39; SC–Lewis, 14:39

Shots: EJ 11-10. Corners: 5-5. Saves: EJ-5 (Andrew Hunter); SC-7 (Owen Schweitzer)

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