Sentinel photo by SAM BAUMGARDNER Mifflin County junior Brody Wolfkill heads the ball amongst a host of Altoona defenders Thursday evening in their playoff game at Donald M. Chapman III Stadium in Highland Park.

LEWISTOWN — No. 2 Mifflin County fought until the end against No. 3 Altoona during a District 6 Class 4A semifinal contest at home on Thursday night, but the Mountain Lions’ boys soccer team would take the rematch in overtime, 2-1.

Altoona (8-9-1) beat the Huskies for the second time in the last 10 days (earned 4-1 win on Oct. 13) and advanced to the D6 championship where they’ll face No. 1 State College in Hollidaysburg next Wednesday.

Mifflin County (7-11-2) had to fight early as they were called for two offsides penalties. Mifflin County would overcome those two calls that went against them and would turn one of them into points on a Brody Wolfkill goal, assisted by Bruce Baker, to give the Huskies a 1-0 advantage with 35:02 remaining in the first half.

The Mountain Lions had the advantage early and often when it came to shots on goal, playing this game still feeling like they had a chance to get back into the contest..

Altoona head coach Travis Young said, “This is for playoff soccer in District 6. I mean hats off to Mifflin County, the beautiful stadium, the team that they put out there this year. We knew they were going to be excited for the game and sure enough right off the bat they came out fighting and credit to them. But you know at the end of the day my guys fought back, they stayed resilient. They didn’t falter from what we had set out at the beginning and that was to play possession, consistent soccer and at the end of the day you get a late goal with the second half to force overtime and then it was anybody’s game from there.”

Altoona would keep on fighting as senior forward Colin Etters would have two great looks but would come up empty. Etters would strike for the third time he would find the back of the net on a rare miss from goalkeeper Jack Suydam to knot things up at 1-1.

Altoona’s Jace Black said, “I think we can really take a lot from this game going through adversity throughout the season and just through this game. We got down early and we just knew we could not give up. That’s something we can take into the next game. We need to come out stronger at the start of the match.We need to bring more intensity. We came out dead in the first half, that’s what killed us.”

Mifflin County lost the battle when it came to shots on goal; they would be held in check to a tune of just three shots and no points to show for it.

Huskies coach Keith Yoder said, “I told the guys I’m proud of them because it’s been a long time since Mifflin County boys soccer has ever been in this position to have a playoff game much less at home on this beautiful stadium.They battled Altoona being down 1-0.You know they pushed and they kept sending new guys up top in the second half and that kept us on our heels and the second half we were hanging about the four-minute mark. Whenever they punched one in it’s tough because we kind of got away from our game a little bit, playing default utilizing good passing but hats off to Altoona because they battled and got into overtime and got one in the net for the win.”

Black would find the net for the Mountain Lions off his left foot to send the Altoona fans into a frenzy as they knocked off the Huskies at Donald M. Chapman III Stadium.