Greensburg Central Catholic boys overcome injuries to defeat Iroquois in PIAA 1st round

By: HSSN Staff
Tuesday, November 6, 2018 | 8:36 PM

ERIE — Battered, bruised and battling heavy winds and a surging opponent, Greensburg Central Catholic faced all kinds of adversity Tuesday night.

The Centurions showed their guts and got the glory.

WPIAL runner-up Greensburg Central Catholic took a three-goal lead and withstood a pair of key injuries and a furious late rally from District 10 champion Iroquois to earn a 3-2 victory in a PIAA Class A first-round game at windy Dollinger Field in Erie.

“It was a full team effort today, 100 percent,” GCC coach Tyler Solis said. “A full team effort. I’m glad we were able to hold off. That was a good team with some really good players.”

Sean Gargan, Luke Mort and Dylan Sebek scored for GCC (18-2), but Iroquois (16-4-1) got two second-half goals from Senad Hucic to make it interesting down the stretch.

Mort and Ricco Cicarelli both exited the game in the first half with leg injuries for GCC, which came to Erie with just two substitutes. Mort returned, but Cicarelli did not after suffering an ankle injury in the 27th minute of the first half.

A few other players went down with injuries during the physical game but played through them as the Centurions advanced to the PIAA quarterfinals for the first time since 2012. They’ll play Seton LaSalle on Saturday at a site and time to be determined.

“It’s been a tough year, but this year, my senior year, has been the best year so far,” Mort said. “We’ve come together as a group, and we wanted to win.”

The winds, which gusted to 40 mph, had a significant impact on the game.

Greensburg Central Catholic, coming off a heartbreaking penalty-kicks loss to Avonworth in the WPIAL championship game, got off to a fast start by taking advantage as they played with the wind in the first half. The Centurions kept the action almost exclusively in the Iroquois end and peppered Braves goalkeeper Collin May with shots.

“The ball’s going to be down in the end where the wind’s going,” Mort said. “You’ve just got to get it out of there because any shot has a chance of going in from any part of the field.”

After some near-misses on point-blank opportunities, the Centurions finally struck on an innocent-looking shot from Gargan. The senior midfielder lofted a shot from more than 40 yards away that tucked under the crossbar in the 14th minute of the first half.

“The goalie played me the ball, and I saw he was off his line,” Gargan said. “I knew I had the wind, and I just had to try to chip it, and I did.”

About 10 minutes later, Mort, a Pitt recruit, fielded a long pass on a bounce and ripped a sharp-angle shot past May into the back of the net. GCC held Iroquois without a shot on goal in the first half, as Centurions goalkeeper Patrick Brewer had to touch the ball just a few times.

“It was the main priority when we set out, the first time I arrived here I (said) I want to be playing with this wind,” Solis said. “We’ve had a couple slow starts, so I thought if we can get this wind behind us, get a nice two-goal lead, which we got, I felt good.”

Sebek made it 3-0 in the eighth minute of the second half, about a minute after Hucic missed just wide on a shot. Sebek popped a shot over May, beat a defender to the loose ball as it bounced along the goal line and put it in the back of the net.

Hucic scored twice, in the 19th minute and the 25th minute, to cut GCC’s lead to 3-2. The second goal came, bizarrely, on a free kick as an Iroquois player held the ball steady — like a holder on an extra point — for Hucic before he attempted the kick.

Iroquois almost tied the score in the 30th minute, but Hucic’s header off a corner kick went over the crossbar. Brewer made two more key saves on corner kicks in the final minutes, finishing with four stops in the game.

“We had a bad result last week, and we want to get gold before the year’s over,” Gargan said.

Doug Gulasy is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Doug at dgulasy@tribweb.com or via Twitter @dgulasy_Trib.

Tags: Greensburg C.C.