Carchedi’s hat trick lifts Wissahickon over Springfield

SPRINGFIELD TWP. — Wissahickon could not have asked for a better start than what it got in Tuesday’s Suburban One American Conference match up with Springfield Township.

With sole possession of second place in the conference, The Trojans scored three goals in the first 20 minutes of action — including two by senior defenseman Max Carchedi — as they won the important showdown 4-1.

“The first 20 minutes looked great,’ Wissahickon coach Stuart Malcolm said. “We got some scrappy goals but they went in and I think we were deserving at least of the lead and it was nice to have three.’

The 3-0 lead for Wissahickon (8-2-0, 6-2-0 SOL American) would stand to be the score at halftime and apparently it was the same time that Springfield woke up. It took the Spartans (6-5-0, 4-4-0) only three minutes in the second half to get on the board as Riley Woron recorded the tally. The goal was really a reward for a game’s worth of hard work as Woron spent much of the day quarterbacking and being a catalyst for the Spartan offense.

“We were happy with what our offense was doing in the first half but our defense was sleeping on us a little bit,’ Springfield coach Dan Meder said. “We did make a little bit of a change at halftime [by putting] guys in better positions and we generated a lot more offense in the second half.’

Offensively, the Spartans kept trying to feed its forwards with through balls and trying to hit home-run passes. Wissahickon keeper John Carrozza shut down a lot of the Springfield passes with good aggressive play.

“When he’s got his confidence going and he communicates and makes good judgment with that he becomes like another defender out there,’ Malcolm said. “That’s the way the modern game is, the goalkeeper being able to use his feet not just stay in the box and make saves.’

With time waning, one minute until fulltime, Wissahickon was awarded a free kick. It was Carchedi who was elected to take the free kick, and with just second remaining netted his third of the day adding an exclamation point to the Trojans day.

“I was very lucky to get into the positions I did today,’ Carchedi said. “I got the opportunity to take a free kick, I don’t normally get those opportunities very often, so I was lucky to [get to take the kick], and I just took every chance I could to put it in the back of the net.’

Only Plymouth Whitemarsh stands ahead of the Trojans in the American Conference and as they add another win under their belt to add to some already quality wins, Wissahickon is playing at a high level with equal amounts of confidence.

“We have very high confidence right now,’ Carchedi said. “We beat one of the best teams [in Suburban One] that we normally lose to, Neshaminy early on, it was a great win. We have a win against Upper Dublin, our biggest rivals, now we just have to come for PW.’