On Saturday, October 20th, the Bethel Park Girls Varsity Soccer Team played Franklin Regional at Home in the first round of WPIAL playoffs. The Black Hawks’ record was 18-1 going into the game and Franklin Regional’s record was 11-8. It was a tight game with plenty of high-paced back and forth action.
The game was scoreless in the first half until Bethel Park senior AJ Baroffio put a breakaway goal into the back of the net. Baroffio also narrowly missed a second goal during the first half. The score was 1-0 at the half after Alexis Keibler put a free kick from the 25 yard line just over the crossbar.
With 25 minutes to go in the second half, Baroffio was hurt in a collision with the Franklin Regional goalie going after a play near the goal. She had to be helped off the field by coaches, and both the play and the clock were stopped.
Later in the second half, Chelsea Conway had a scoring opportunity off a lob kick by Alexis Keibler. However, the Franklin Regional goalie made a nice save and Bethel Park’s lead remained 1-0.
After being on the sideline for more than 10 minutes, senior AJ Baroffio returned to the game. However, after limping onto the field, she just did not have the same impact.
With six minutes and 30 seconds left in the game, Franklin Regional had a free kick that looked like it was about to go in, but was was saved by the BP goalie Alycia Jiminez, who had to jump to keep the ball from slipping just beneath the crossbar.
However, Franklin Regional would only be stopped for so long. The persistent Franklin Regional Panthers’ goal was kicked in off a corner kick with five minutes and 50 seconds to play in the game. Time expired and the game proceeded to OT.
The playoff overtime format includes a 15 minute sudden death golden goal period. If neither team scores in the first overtime period, the match proceeds to a second. If nobody scores in the second overtime, the game proceeds to penalty kicks, which are best out of five shots.
The Bethel Park game proceeded through both golden goal periods, during which several of Bethel Park’s shots hit the crossbar. The game then advanced to penalty kicks after Bethel Park won the coin toss and chose to kick last. Both Bethel Park and Franklin Regional made three out of five penalty kicks.
After the first five penalty kicks, the game becomes sudden death penalty kicks. The Franklin Regional kick was saved by Bethel Park goalie Alycia Jiminez, and Bethel Park had a chance to win the game on their sixth total penalty kick. Sarah Buczkowski put the next penalty kick into the net to win the game and help the number three seed Bethel Park narrowly escape defeat in the first round of WPIAL playoffs.
After the game, we were able to talk to head coach and AP Euro and World Geography teacher Mr. Gentile.
He told us that AJ Baroffio was injured going after a play near the goal where her ankle was injured and cut.
His thoughts about Franklin Regional scoring with 4 minutes to play were as follows: “It was disheartening because until that point we dominated play and limited chances for Franklin Regional.”
When talking about the overtime and penalty kick performance, Mr. Gentile said, “We worked hard all game and never gave up, especially not in the second half. We won in overtime and penalty kicks versus St. Clair. We always manage to find that extra push at the end.”
His overall thoughts on the game were that Bethel Park dominated in the first half, the game was equal in the second half, and the soccer gods were with Bethel Park in penalty kicks.
He also shared his thoughts with us on their next game, which is against Norwin at 6 PM on Wednesday night at Peters Township. He said that it will definitely be a good matchup, as both teams played similar opponents in the first round. He said that Bethel Park definitely has somewhat of a home field advantage, but it ought to be an interesting, back and forth game.
Good luck to the Lady Hawks in their next round match against Norwin!
Thanks to Austin Smith and Brendan Kail for contributing to the content of this article.
