SOCCER

Rams hoping for sweet run in postseason

Vinny Pezzimenti

SPRING MILLS — The Penns Valley boys' soccer team has no games this week. At this time of year, on the doorstep of the postseason, such a lengthy layoff can be downright excruciating.

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The Rams’ biggest challenge isn’t defeating an opponent. Rather, it’s finding a way to bottle the edge and drive that has already guided them to a school record 15 wins.

Coach Scott Case has a few tricks up his sleeve. Such as on Monday afternoon, when he brought the group together. Instead of pushing the players through a customary set of sprints, Case added a twist. The Rams would take part in a ball-dribbling relay race, with the winners awarded Hershey’s candy bars. Why Hershey’s?

“All season,” Case said, “we’ve been feeding these guys Hershey bars because that’s where we want the season to end.”

For Penns Valley, anyway, the chocolate has done a body good. But good enough to make a run at Hershey, the site of this year’s PIAA finals?

Perhaps the bigger question is: Can the Rams merely win the prize that has alluded them, that being the District 6 title? So far so good.

Penns Valley enters its District 6 Class A semifinal against Cambria Heights — the match will likely be moved from Tuesday in Spring Mills to Monday night at State College’s Memorial Field — at 15-2-1, the only losses coming to Class AAA Central Mountain. The Rams haven’t played since Thursday, when it topped Philipsburg- Osceola 8-0.

The time off has allowed Penns Valley to savor its record-breaking season and look ahead to the postseason. Just as they was last year, the Rams are the second seed behind No. 1 Richland in the four-team district tournament. Richland won that championship game 2-0, sending Penns Valley to its second straight district runner-up finish. A rematch with Richland seems likely.

“I think we can definitely take Richland this year,” midfielder Evan Gover said. “Personally, I’m feeling confident.”

Standing close by, teammates Anthony Glossner and Ben Eberly nodded in agreement.

“Two unlucky goals against us,” Glossner, a midfielder, remembered of last year’s loss. “We just really couldn’t put anything in the net.”

Eberly took a less analytical approach.

“Third time’s a charm,” the sweeper said in anticipation of the team’s third straight title game trip.

Case doesn’t remember much about last year’s game, couldn’t even recall the score actually. But there was the goal off a corner kick four minutes in and the other after a restart late in the match — a dart of a shot from 23 yards out to the upper right corner of the goal.

“The keeper had no chance,” Penns Valley assistant Tim Rogers said.

The player who buried the shot was foreign, prompting an interesting postgame conversation between Case and Richland coach Dan Sichak.

Case: “Where did you get that exchange student?”

Sichak: “It’s not an exchange student. A Norwegian engineering firm has opened up down here.” Talk about bad luck.

“After that game, all I could think about was the loss,” Glossner said. “This year I really want it.”

One can’t help but think that this is Penns Valley’s year. The roster features seven seniors who have been with the team since their freshmen years, including Gover, who was an all-state selection as a junior. Case recounted a recent

encounter with Walter Bahr, the former Penn State coach who played in the World Cup for the U.S. in 1950.

“Who is the best soccer coach?” Bahr asked the Penns Valley players.

“Of course, none of the boys looked at me,” Case said with a grin. “They were trying to name people, and Walter said, ‘The game is the best teacher. If you play enough games you’re going to get good.’

“I think they’ve played enough games. They’re ready to make it happen.”

And though the Rams have been defined by their savvy veterans, perhaps “The neat thing about this team is they’ve been (to the district championship). They’ve been there and lost a couple times.

They’ve seen it, and now hopefully it’s just going to be another game and not some really difficult task.”

“The neat thing about this team is they’ve been (to the district championship),” Case said. “They’ve been there and they lost a couple times. They’ve seen it, and now hopefully it’s just going to be another game and not some really difficult task.”

It also helps to have a couple of behemoths roaming the pitch. Case talked about special breeding procedures in Penns Valley, but it was hard to tell if he was joking or not when the towering Gover, who goes 6-foot-5, and Eberly, 6-4, approached. Stopper Derek Wasson is also 6-4.

Must be all the chocolate they consume.

“If nothing else, (the size creates) intimidation,” Eberly said. “Kids are afraid to mark me sometimes. They argue about who wants to take me.”

And, of course, there is Case, who is the program’s patriarch, its head coach since its beginning in 1997. As he said with a laugh, “My lucky 13th year.”

He just might be onto something.

Vinny Pezzimenti can be reached at 231-4629.