River Hill senior midfielder Joseph Montgomery scored with just over a minute left in the first half to break a scoreless tie and the Hawks played stellar defense to hold off relentless Catonsville pressure in the second half to advance to the Class 3A state championship game after a 2-0 victory in Saturday’s semifinal at Glen Burnie.
The Hawks (13-3) will face Howard County rival Mt. Hebron at 7:30 p.m. Thursday at Loyola’s Ridley Athletic Complex for the 3A state championship.
Montgomery’s game-winner came off a through ball from Sam Van Ert.
“He kind of saw the striker there, but then I made the run after the striker and I kind of went in for it,” Montgomery said. “He saw my striker running in and I came in behind the striker.”
“We worked all week on those runs through the channel and we were hoping to get in behind the outside backs,” River Hill coach Matt Shagogue said. “We thought we could get in behind them, we were lucky enough to get there and Joe had a nice, great composed finish.”
River Hill’s added an own goal when Logan Aranda’s ball was redirected by a Comet defender into the goal with 4:22 left in the game.
Catonsville (9-7) was making only its second state semifinal appearance in school history and refused to fold. The Comets’ best scoring chance in the first half came ended when Matt Carlson’s shot leaked wide.
“It was an outstanding run to get here for only the second time in school history, to play so well in the postseason and to be in great form to run it through,” Catonsville coach Brendan Kennedy said. “I’m really proud of this group for responding and fighting through it and playing as well as we did and it was unfortunate to take the loss right here, but still happy to have gotten here.”
River Hill’s best chance ended with Montgomery’s goal and Shagogue was happy he came through.
“Thankfully, all it took was that one chance because the further the game goes on and so Catonsville pressed us so hard in the second half and they hit a crossbar and it was close,” he said.
River Hill nearly extended the lead with 29 minutes left in the game but a one-on-one breakaway ended with an outstanding save by keeper Mark Michaelson (five saves). That was one of two solid chances for the Hawks in the second half with Winston Yao providing the other.
Mt. Hebron boys soccer beats South River in a shootout to advance to 3A state final
The Comets outshot the Hawks, 8-5, in the second half and had a pair of golden opportunities. The first came on a shot by Anthony Argueta that hit off the far post. Another near chance came after a feed from Nate Holub-Smith deep in the box to Argueta, who punched it into the back of the net, but was ruled offsides.
Before the own goal, Holub-Smith nearly netted the equalizer after his header following a corner kick by Toby Tracht hit the middle of the crossbar.
“We played an excellent second half, really, really unlucky on that own goal that we got,” Kennedy said. “I thought we were absolutely the better team in the second half. We had more chances, we possessed the ball better, we won more of those 50/50s, we played it tight, we just couldn’t get one past and couldn’t break through to find the goal.”
1 of 16
Making that more difficult was the defense of Luke Martinez, Tomi Mumuney, Charlie Gerber and Max Gerber, who helped alleviate the pressure for goalie Zach Glass (six saves).
“We knew that their way of attack is going to be to find one of those target strikers they flick on behind our center backs, so we focused on that all week that we cannot allow that,” Shagogue said.
Shagogue was simply happy to survive and advance.
“At this time of year winning takes a lot of luck,” he said. “How many guys you have injured, who you have injured, they hit a crossbar, we hit a deflection for a goal, so you’ve got to be lucky when you continue to go this far. There is a lot of things that go into winning and we were just obviously fortunate enough.”
River Hill will be gunning for its first state title since 2014.
“I’m so excited for the kids,” Shagogue said. “Obviously it’s a goal every year and I’m really happy for them because they will get to experience it and it’s a great feeling.”
Montgomery is ready for that feeling as well.
“It just came from passion, we just had purpose and we had a goal in mind from the very beginning,” Montgomery said. “On to states, that’s all we wanted to do.”
Have a news tip? Contact Craig Clary at [email protected] and x.com/ClaryCraig.
Originally Published:
