Lansdale Catholic cruises to 5th straight District 12 title
PHILADELPHIA >> After a tough shootout loss to Roman Catholic in the Philadelphia Catholic League playoffs follow by a 10-day layoff, the Lansdale Catholic boys soccer team was ready to go Monday and continued its streak of District 12 championships.
Chris Edling scored a hat trick — collected the first two goals against Philadelphia Academy Charter as the Crusaders cruised to a 5-0 victory in the Class 2A final at Benjamin L. Johnston Memorial Stadium to secure their fifth consecutive district title.
“The kids in this program really take a lot of pride in this District 12 championship being that they won it quite a few years in a row,” said LC first-year coach Bill James. “I’m new to that tradition but they take it very, very seriously. It’s something that they set a goal for themselves at the beginning of the year. So, it really showed how hard they played and that’s the kind of tempo that we need moving forward in this tournament coming up.”
Edling put the Crusaders ahead less than four minutes into the first half that doubled the advantage at 27:48 as the LC attack pushed for goals throughout the contest with the Chargers.
“We were ready to come at them and get the job done,” Edling said.
Edling finished off his hat trick at 10:28 in the second half, sliding a shot in after Matt McDonald found Edling after a run down the endline.
Cory Toburen and Joe Cook also scored for Lansdale Catholic, which moves on to the District 1/12 subregional Wednesday to host District 1 second seed Lower Moreland at 3 p.m. Winner clinches a PIAA tournament berth and faces New Hope-Solebury or Philadelphia Academy Charter in the regional final Saturday at Central Bucks West.
“Sometimes you’re worried with long layoffs like that but we took a day or two to rest,” James said. “And I think it worked with our legs being fresh then we got our to a quick start which we haven’t done very much and we showed what happens when we get out to quick starts on teams. The game becomes much easier.”
Edling made it 1-0 at 36:22. Evan Senour’s ball to the middle of the 18-yard box was slightly deflected, but not enough to stop it from getting to Edling, who had enough time to blast a right-footed shot into the back of net.
“We talked about it all the time, every time we’ve scored first this year, we’ve won the game. So that’s a big goal for us to do. And Chris scoring the first minutes was a great, great tone-setter for us. So, he set the tone, we all followed right in behind.”
The Crusaders went up 2-0 on Edling’s second as Steve Esterle slide a cross into the box right for the charging Edling to knock in.
“Right off the bat we want to come at them, give them everything we had,” Edling said.
Toburen extended the lead to 3-0 with 3:14 left before halftime as his shot in the box to a deflection off a Charger before going into the net.
It became a 4-0 lead for LC at 21:18 remaining as Kyle Kane made a run into the box and towards the endline before stopping, turning and finding Cook, who tapped a shot past PAC goalkeeper Brendan Werner.
