CLEARFIELD – The Philipsburg-Osceola soccer Mounties punched their ticket to the Mountain League title game with an 8-0 whitewashing of the Bisons in Clearfield Tuesday. Or did they?
The Mounties are now 5-0 against Allegheny Division foes this year, having won three early season games at Curtis Park and now having defeated Tyrone and Clearfield again on the road. But, due to a vague glitch in the way the league is running its railroad this season, it is unclear whether or not the Mounties must yet win or tie in Huntingdon Thursday night. Stay tuned.
In the game at hand, Alex Boumerhi and Taylor Golemboski both scored a brace as ten different Mounties got on the score sheet with either goals or assists.
Golemboski, the big P-O center back, scored the decisive goal at the 9:26 mark on a clean header of the corner kick of sophomore defender Nick Boumerhi. Within a minute, Mountie junior midfielder Zach Hynd launched a rainbow from outside the box that beat Bison keeper Keith Biancuzzo high and to the back post to make it 2-0.
Chris Barnhart netted at 15:23 when he cleaned up the second ball headed his way by Jarrett Rockey from yet another Nick Boumerhi corner kick.
Mountie senior captain Alex Boumerhi scored the goal of the match when he scorched a direct kick from between 30 and 35 yards out from the Bison net in the 19th minute. It is getting old hat for the elder Boumerhi brother. Last Monday, he hit a similar goal from the run of play against Tyrone.
“Folks are going to have to learn that you can’t give Alex Boumerhi an open look from that range,” said Mounties coach Tom Petro. “That free kick was from a place where you don’t normally expect to score.”
Rockey flashed more heading prowess at 27:51 when he headed home a long throw-in from Golemboski and then senior striker Antonino Turrigiano casually finished a sweet through ball from freshman midfielder Wyatt Inlow to run the score to 6-0 by the break.
Golemboski scored at 60:37 when he put away a long crossing ball from senior striker Dustin Fisch and Alex Boumerhi closed accounts at 61:13 from an assist by junior defenseman Alex Gray. Mountie keepers Jay Prentice and Mitchell Winters combined on the clean sheet.
Now, about that title game, which is set for Malinak Stadium in Mill Hall this Saturday at 3 p.m.
“It’s an awful lot of work to do to get a third match this season with Central Mountain,” said Petro. Central Mountain had clinched the Nittany Division title with a win over Juniata on October 1 and they are 4-0 in their division. Mountain and the Mounties have split the inter-conference home and home this season though, with each team taking a 1-0 victory at home.
“We just don’t know in the tie-breaking process what games they are counting in the head-to-head category,” said Petro. “With Huntingdon sitting at 1-1 in our division right now and us at 2-0, Huntingdon could tie our division record by beating us. The first tie-breaker is head-to-head and we’re waiting on clarification from the league as to whether or not that tie breaker takes into account both the home and away results.”
One thing the Mounties won’t have to wait for is an invitation into the District 6 AA Tournament which begins next week. While the seeds and brackets have not been announced, the Mounties figure to be one of the top three seeds in the district with an overall record of 11-3-1.
GAME NOTES: The Mounties outshot the Bisons 22-6 on the day, won the corner kick tally by a 6-3 margin, and keepers Prentice and Winters combined on 5 saves to Biancuzzo’s 6.
It is Mountie Tradition to name a “Man of the Match.” Today’s junior varsity honoree was sophomore midfielder Levi Muir. The varsity honoree was Taylor Golemboski, who scored twice and assisted on one other goal.
