DALLAS TWP. – The Dallas boys soccer team took a brief break from pursuing a Wyoming Valley Conference Division 1 title and a District 2 Class 3A top seed.
Playing a rival for a coveted trophy in front of a Saturday night crowd in their home stadium, however, kept the Mountaineers from showing any break in intensity.
Ricky Wooditch scored the game’s first two goals and the Dallas defense limited Lake-Lehman to one shot until the final 30 seconds of a 5-1 win that allowed the Mountaineers to hold on to the Cleary Cup, the prize at stake in the annual meeting of Back Mountain rivals.
The Mountaineers posted their second straight win and the 10th in 11 tries since they started playing a yearly game against the Black Knights in memory of Lt. Michael J. Cleary. Cleary, a 1999 graduate, was captain of the Dallas soccer and tennis teams before going on to play both sports at Hamilton College. He was killed in 2005 while serving in Iraq.
“We played really well,” Dallas coach Chris Scharff said. “We always want to win the Cleary Cup and beat my alma mater.”
The teams fell off each other’s Wyoming Valley Conference schedule prior to last season when realignment sent them to different divisions. The Cleary Cup, however, remained.
Until Lake-Lehman went through a tough week, the game had shaped up as a meeting of the two WVC division leaders.
Dallas has a half-game lead on Crestwood in Division 1 and is tied with Abington Heights in the race for the top seed in the district tournament. Lake-Lehman fell out of the Division 2 lead, dropping to third place and appears to have lost its shot at a top seed in the District 2 Class 2A tournament.
The Black Knights continued to struggle in a game that did not impact either race for the two teams.
The only complaint Scharff could muster on a night when the Mountaineers dominated throughout was that he would like to see his team be even more efficient on scoring opportunities.
Dallas had advantages of 17-1 in shots and 6-0 in corner kicks in the first half, but only 2-0 on the scoreboard with the first of those goals coming on a penalty kick just 3:10 into the game.
“In certain games you’re only going to get a few chances,” Scharff said. “We have good enough players, we have to put in those goals.
“If we only get four chances, I want to score three of them.”
Wooditch scored both first-half goals 10 minutes apart.
“Ricky scores a lot of goals and a lot of big goals for us,” Scharff said. “He had to step up because we were resting three of our starters who are nicked up a little bit.”
Dallas clicked at a better rate in the second half, scoring on three of eight shots.
Joey Nardone, Zack Kalna and John Betzko had the goals while Alex Solano had two of the assists.
Lake-Lehman had taken just one shot, which was not on goal, until Derek Gordon stopped a partial breakaway with 28 seconds left.
Justin Timonte broke the shutout for Lake-Lehman with four seconds left.
Dallas 5, Lake-Lehman 1
Lake-Lehman`0`1`—`1
Dallas`2`3`—`5
First half — 1. DAL, Ricky Wooditch (penalty kick) 36:50; 2. DAL, Wooditch (David Chopyak) 26:50. Second half — 3. DAL, Joey Nardone (Alex Solano) 32:23; 4. DAL, Zack Kalna (Dawson Sensenig) 17:22; 5. DAL, John Betzko (Solano) 6:37. 6. LL, Justin Timonte (Max Paczewski) 0:04.
Shots — LL 3, DAL 25. Saves — LL 4 (Chris Ash), DAL 1 (Derek Gordon 1, Kyle Greenwood 0). Corner kicks — LL 0, DAL 6.
