BOYS' SOCCER: Susquehannock cruises into District 3-AA semifinals

SPRING GROVE — Playing a doubleheader is turning out to be a very good thing for the Susquehannock boys' and girls' soccer teams.

So, it should be no surprise that both Warrior clubs were hoping to make history repeat itself on Thursday.

After the Susquehannock squads won their first-round District 3-AA playoff soccer contests at home on Monday, both Warrior outfits traveled to Spring Grove in attempt to make it happen again Thursday night.

With the girls' team winning its showdown vs. Northeastern 2-0 in the first game, the Susquehannock boys were able to follow that up with an impressive win of their own vs. Bermudian Springs.

An early header by Kaleb Lippy off a nice feed from Colton Mumley put the Warriors up just more than 10 minutes into play. The Eagles were never able to mount a serious threat after than and Susquehannock cruised to a 4-0 triumph.

The fourth-seeded Warriors (14-6) will move to the district semifinals, where they will face rival Gettysburg on Monday. No. 1 seed Gettysburg (21-0), the York-Adams League champ, advanced after claiming a similar 4-0 victory over East Pennsboro.

"We're excited to play them," Susquehannock's Luke Thomas said. "To get another shot at them for a third time this season is exciting."

While the four-goal margin looks great on a score sheet, Warrior coach Brett Maxwell felt his team played far from perfect. Some of that is a credit to the Eagles, who forced a more physical style of play throughout the night.

"This wasn't pretty," Maxwell said. "It wasn't a very clean game of soccer. We had to play physical and we did what we had to do to get the 'W.'"

Maxwell's club out shot the Eagles 13-2, while holding a 4-2 edge in corners.

Leading by two goals at the break, it felt as if the Warriors were positioned to explode in the second half. Bermudian, however, was able to keep it a two-goal game throughout much of the second half.

"Their goalie is very good," Maxwell said.

Thomas, however, was finally able to put the game away with a pair of goals over the final 10 minutes.

"We knew that we had to focus on this game," Thomas said. "We beat them 2-0 in counties and that was a physical game, so we knew this was going to be physical too."

Now the Warriors will get another crack at knocking off their York-Adams Division II rivals in the District 3-AA semifinals. After a string of dominance over Gettysburg previously, the Adams County Warriors have won the past three meetings, including a 3-0 triumph in their most recent showdown.

Will Maxwell and his club be able to upset the unbeaten York-Adams League champ in another rematch? If they do it won't be because Maxwell has learned a great deal of secrets from watching and playing Gettysburg.

"Nothing," Maxwell said while laughing after being asked what he's learned about the Division II champs. "We can't figure them out. But we did much, much better against them the second time. Even though the final was 3-0, and they controlled the second half for sure, the first half was relatively even. We had some opportunities."

Considering that it has been good luck for the school when the boys' and girls' teams play at the same venue on the same night, Maxwell is hopeful the district will afford them that chance one more time Monday.

"This has been awesome," he said. "Two games, back-to-back. (Last) Monday we got to do it at home and tonight it was great to be able to watch the girls play and then have the girls stick around and watch us play and get a couple wins out of it."

OTHER BOYS' SOCCER

Gettysburg 4, East Pennsboro 0: At Hershey, Matt Yingling and Drew Riggle led the Warriors to the District 3-AA quarterfinal win by each scoring one goal and adding one assist. Connor Weikert and Bobby Weikert also scored one goal apiece, while Isaac Myers and Jake Wilhelm picked up one assist apiece. No. 1 seed Gettysburg (21-0-0) moves to the semifinals and will face No. 4 seed Susquehannock (14-6-0) on Monday. Susquehannock routed Bermudian Springs, 4-0. No. 5 seed Bermudian finished 15-4-0.

— Reach Ryan Vandersloot at sports@yorkdispatch.com.