Tigers topple Sayre

LOYALSOCK TOWNSHIP - Southern Columbia's No. 1 seed in the District 4 Class AA boys soccer tournament looked well-deserved on Saturday.

The ranking was based on their perfect 18-0 regular season, thanks to a lineup filled with seniors, including eight who start. It was, however, junior Dante Anskis who pulled the trigger on two goals and an assist to have a hand in every Tigers' score as they defeated No. 8 Sayre 3-0 at Balls Mills Soccer Club field in Loyalsock Township on Saturday.

Southern moves on to play No. 5 seed East Juniata at 6 p.m. Tuesday at the Middleburg field. The Tigers must win to guarantee themselves an automatic bid into the PIAA state playoffs.

"We're going to play who I consider to be the first or second best team in East Juniata next Tuesday," Southern Columbia head coach Jon Joseph said. "We play in a weaker division, or so people said, so playing teams that have a ton of speed, like EJ and Lewisburg, if they make it there, will help. The record doesn't really mean anything, it's the guys that you have. And I think we have a crew that can hang."

Despite scoring only three times, Southern controlled nearly every moment of the clock as the Tigers

rattled off 28 shots against the Redskins.

The overall speed or physicality, depending on which head coach you ask, was the difference in the game.

Southern displayed a tremendous ability to anticipate the Redskins' moves and continually push the ball after basically owning midfield all evening.

"Yeah," Joseph responded simply when asked if speed was the deciding factor. "We have a smaller team. If can have speed and score early, it's better off for us because we don't have a ton of subs. We've been talking a lot about possessions, we had a lot of 1-2s tonight. We were able to stretch it out, and we knew they had a smaller team, too. I wish we would have finished a few more, but. ... We pretty much had the flow of the play."

It was the first time the Tigers played on artificial turf all year, which only served to intensify Southern's speed and ball handling.

"They were excited. We want to trap and possess and move the ball with speed," Joseph said. "At home, it's tough because the ball bounces over their head or because our field is so small. It was nice to be up here, nice and quick."

Anskis' first goal came in the first half at the 15:48 mark. The Tigers continually pressed into the Redskins' zone, but couldn't find the back of the net again until 30 minutes later when Nate Miriello scored off an assist from Anskis.

Anskis scored his second goal off a direct kick from Miriello with roughly nine minutes remaining in the game to secure the victory.

The score could have been much higher without the individual effort of

Ball handling was what immediately came to the mind of Sayre's coach Ron Prados when asked about the biggest factor in the game.

"I don't think it was their speed as much as their ability to control the ball," Prados said. "They passed the ball very well. They did a really good job of opening up space, by effectively working the ball off the short passes. We tended to back up, we didn't win first ball, so they took control of the game.

"I'm proud of our kids. Riley Card, our goalie, played an outstanding game. And if you looked at it, we tended to lose midfield a couple of times, but they were a brutal team. I've got kids banged up, I've got one that's going to get an X-ray soon."

Beside holding Sayre's school record holding scorer Taylor Skerpon goalless, the Tigers are also the first team that was able to shut out Sayre all season.

Game Summary

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