MECHANICSBURG — Sascha Sanders wasn’t kidding around when he told reporters Cumberland Valley is aiming for the state championship this year.
Those words rang true on Tuesday. Down 1-0 at halftime, District 3 Class 4A repeat champion Cumberland Valley put away two second-half goals to rally past District 1 sixth-place finisher Souderton, 2-1 at Rahal Field to kick off the PIAA 4A tournament.
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It’s the first state playoff win for the Eagles since 2020, having fallen in penalty kicks on the same stage last year.
Unbeaten since Aug. 31, here’s how Cumberland Valley survived and advanced.
The stars
Lex Radosavljevic — the captain of a defense that’s surrendered one or fewer goals in 20 of the last 21 games — showed some flare offensively with the game-tying goal in the 55th minute. Jayden Handy then scored the game-winner nine minutes later. Micahel Hoy came up with three saves for the Eagles.
In their first PIAA tournament appearance since 2014, the Indians let their presence be felt early with a goal in the sixth minute. Senior forward Tannor Wiszneski sent a ball across the box and midfielder Drew Kerns banged it in to give Souderton a 1-0 lead that lasted for 49 minutes. Trevor Aldefer recorded six saves for the Indians.
Game-deciding moments
Trailing by a goal, Cumberland Valley drew even ground on a restart in the 55th minute. Senior captain Jake Dussinger booted a ball into a crowded box and Radosavljevic met it on the deflection in traffic. Coming in from the left-hand side, Radosavljevic angled himself around to the right of the ball and delivered a strike off his right foot to send it into the bottom left of the net for the equalizer, 1-1.
In the 64th minute, Eagles midfielder Zac Slevin made an outlet pass over the middle of the field that landed right in front of Handy in transition. Handy split between two Souderton defenders and was challenged by Aldefer coming out of the net for the ball. Handy got the touch off his right foot to sneak it past Aldefer and the forward guided it into the net for the game-winner.
Up next
Cumberland Valley (19-1-1) advances to the PIAA 4A quarterfinals and will face WPIAL runner-up Plum (18-1-3), a 1-0 (5-4 PK) winner over District 10 champion McDowell (16-5), on Saturday at a time and location to be determined. Souderton ends its season 18-6 overall.
They said it
“I saw a gap between the two center backs and as soon as the ball got to my teammate, I knew that if I ran through and he kicked it over, I knew I could get there. When I saw the keeper coming I was like, ‘Oh no’ because I was trying to get a touch around him. I got my touch around him and it just went in.” — Handy on his sequence against Aldefer.
“Last year, that unfortunately happened and we wanted to take it further this year. We know we have the team to do it, so we’ll just go game by game.” — Radosavljevic on last year’s PIAA 4A first-round loss in penalty kicks and the motivation to travel further into the postseason.
“We started with this group young last year, so we committed to all our guys last year and what they mean to our system, learning how we play and now they’ve grown up another year and most of them are seniors. They buy into what we want to do and honestly, half of what we do is just work really hard, which you can see tonight.
“I think we won most 50-50 balls in the air, we won most balls in the box and we got unlucky at times. Besides that, they’ve worked really hard together.” — Second-year Souderton coach Frank DeMas on flipping an 8-9-1 record from last year to the program’s first state tournament appearance in a decade.
“There are so many guys who do stuff up top and then we win the ball somewhere else. Our press is cool because everybody works hard and then we win it in different spots, but we understand, ‘I’ll do my job and then my teammate will win the ball for me’ and it’s awesome.” — Cumberland Valley coach Matt Billman on his defense adjusting to Souderton and not letting up more than one goal in 20 of the last 21 games.
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