Wheeling Central Boys Shut Out Columbiana For OVAC 1A-3A Title
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WHEELING -- The Wheeling Central Maroon Knights boys soccer squad had only a handful of blemishes on their season record coming into Saturday's OVAC 1A-3A championship game, but, doubtless to the dismay of soccer teams around the state, head coach Brian Komorowski sees his team continuing to get better.
"I want to say the first half of the game was probably the best half of soccer we've played so far this year," Komorowski said. "I mean, we put everything together that we’ve been working on."
So it was that Wheeling Central captured their third-straight OVAC title Saturday, the top-seeded Maroon Knights holding No. 2 Columbiana off the scoreboard in a 3-0 victory inside Wheeling Island Stadium.
Columbiana, in their third year as part of the OVAC, was an unfamiliar opponent to Wheeling Central coming into their title bout.
"We really didn’t know a lot about our opponent," Komorowski said. "You can look at scores, but we really didn’t have a lot of common opponents. So you really can’t do a lot of strategizing. I saw some film so you could see something, but you really didn’t know a lot about them.
"So we just took the approach-- go out, play our best game, and the result will come the way we think it will."
In the 3-0 victory, it was Owen Mullin, Cooper Crews and Carter Oliver who each totaled a goal, while the Central defense stood strong throughout for a clean sheet.
"Defensively we’re strong," Komorowski said. "I mean, it starts in the back with [goalkeeper] Santino Sperlazza. He’s an absolute anchor as a goalie. I think he’s got six shutouts already this year. I think he’s at 0.4 goals against. He was Player of the Year last year in the OVAC. He’s absolutely a rock back there.
"In front of him, you got Carter Oliver and Dawson Zwack as my center backs, both seniors, both very, very solid. With that trio, you don’t allow a lot. My two outside backs, Finn Tuu and Hunter Kinkade, they’ve picked up all the slack and not much gets by any of them."
The threepeat is the latest in a slew of successes for Wheeling Central, who previous to these last three OVAC championships, had not won an OVAC boys soccer title.
"This is the first three we’ve ever won," Komorowski said. "This is all new for us. We have a really strong core. We got a young nucleus. We just keep building and building and building.
"For us, the OVAC is very important, but it’s not the goal. The goal is the state. And that’s what we told them today. It’s like, hey, this was just a piece of the puzzle. The ultimate goal is in November."
Wheeling Central, now 10-1-2, turns back to their regular season schedule when they host Summit Christian Academy (9-2) on Oct. 3.