Photo Provided St. Clairsville’s Parker Galloway (3) works to get past Catholic Central’s Daniel Bolster. Galloway finished with four goals and two assists.

ST. CLAIRSVILLE–Both St. Clairsville and Catholic Central likely spent the weekend pondering what could have been.

The Red Devils missed out on the OVAC 4A finale after falling to East Liverpool, 1-0 at home, in the semifinal round. The Crusaders went to and through overtime against Trinity Christian, only to ultimately lose in a shootout.

With unrealized possibilities potentially still fresh in the mind, the two teams met Monday night at Red Devils Stadium. While Catholic Central may have been distracted early, the same can’t be said for St. Clairsville.

The Red Devils, led by four goals and two assists from sophomore dynamo Parker Galloway, unloaded for five goals in the first half en route to a 6-1 victory.

“We came out hot,” St. Clairsville head coach Jeff Roberts said. “I told them at the half that was the best I’d seen us play a half of soccer. The passing, the movement, everything.

“We played as a team and Steubenville Catholic is well coached and they never just come out and let you win. They came back in the second half and never quit, and my hat is off to them.”

On the opposite sideline, that was far from the first half performance that Crusaders’ coach Steve Kopcha was looking for, or even expecting.

Catholic Central came in with a 7-2-2 record, averaging nearly four goals per match. After 40 minutes of play, the visitors managed just one shot at St. C. keeper Talan Rice, and that save didn’t require a great level of difficulty to stop.

The majority of the half was spent in the Crusaders’ end of the field, with keeper Tom Baillargeon diving all over the box amidst a 12-shot barrage.

“We didn’t’ come out to a very good start,” Kopcha said. “St. C. did a great job possessing the ball in the first half, controlling the game. I didn’t like our production in the first half. In the second half, it was much better.

“We talked at halftime about putting the (Trinity) loss behind us and responding to those unfortunate, challenging circumstances.”

St. C. got the scoring started at 31:29 when Mavrik Malin received the ball in the right side of the field and fired a brilliant crossing ball to Galloway, who directed a kick while in the air for the first of his four goals.

He assisted on the next goal which came of the foot of freshman Lucas Causey. Galloway tallied the next two on assists from Carson Hendershot while Galloway and senior Christopher Schmidt scored the final two.

Steubenville Catholic was held scoreless until Benji Rook displayed some quality footwork in creating just enough space on the right side of the next and rocketing a shot top-shelf left past a diving Rice for the Crusaders’ lone goal.

It was a quality win for St. C., which had plenty of time to process and move past the loss to East Liverpool.

“We were hungry,” Roberts said. “We hadn’t played since that loss at home to East Liverpool that knocked us out and I think the boys were ready to go out and get the win.”

St. C. travels to Brooke on Thursday while Catholic Central head to JM on Thursday before a tough contest against Steubenville on Saturday.

Rice finished with six saves for St. C. while Bailargeon blocked 17 shots, including a number of impressive stops in the second half.