PHILADELPHIA >> Finn Murray scored in the 15th minute and CJ Massella added another in the 45th as La Salle defeated Northeast, 2-0, in the District 12-4A championship game Thursday afternoon at Northeast High School.
It’s La Salle’s sixth District 12 championship in the last eight years and secures the Explorers spot in the PIAA-4A playoffs, which start Tuesday, Nov. 7.
“Coming into this season we were looking for the PCL and the district,” Murray, a junior midfielder, said. “Here we go – we got it. It’s a great feeling.”
“We just earned our next 80 minutes,” senior goalkeeper Ryan Kalup added. “That’s all that matters to us.”
La Salle, which won the Philadelphia Catholic League championship last weekend over Father Judge, dominated the district title game from start to finish. The Explorers had a handful of scoring opportunities early in the game before breaking through on their first corner kick.
Murray took the corner from the right of the net and the ball came down just beyond the near-post. It took a La Salle bounce off of a Northeast player and into the net for what proved to be the game-winning goal.
The Explorers earned three more corner kicks in the first half and all three created strong scoring opportunities, but they couldn’t get another one by Northeast goalkeeper Cameron Powers, who made six of his 11 saves in the first half, and the teams went to halftime with the score 1-0.
Northeast did have a chance to tie the game in the first half. Immediately after Murray’s goal, the Vikings generated a scoring opportunity but Kalup came out of the net and attacked the ball, deflecting a shot to the side and out of harm’s way.
“Not letting them back in the game is huge,” Kalup said. “It’s a big blow when you’re in the 18 and miss an opportunity like that. It’s definitely frustrating. Just making sure they didn’t score in that opportunity was huge for us.”
La Salle came out on fire in the second half, getting three great looks in the first four minutes. When the Explorers got their fourth opportunity they made it count. Powers made back-to-back saves on La Salle shots from point-blank range and the second rebound went right to Massella, who buried it into an open net for a 2-0 lead in the 45th minute.
“Any time you can get that breathing room,” La Salle coach Tom McCaffery said, “it’s always huge to let the guys take that deep breath and loosen up a little bit in terms of the scoreline, but I think the other piece of it, too, is that mentality-wise we still managed to try to move the ball and try to create opportunities for other guys.”
Northeast generated good chances in the 59th, 60th and 71st minutes, by Kalup turned two of them away and another was just wide of the goal. Kalup finished the game with three saves.
“We just worked,” he said. “(Northeast) is an aggressive team. They play on the ball pretty well. They have good technical ability and like to play in the lanes. We just read the ball well, communicated pretty well and we just did our jobs.”
“Ryan has been doing a really good job lately between the pipes,” McCaffery said. “When you look at the last two weeks of the regular season and the playoffs – besides the two that he gave up against Judge he’s had a really good record in goal. Maybe one goal here or there but several shutouts. Then you look at what the centre-backs did and even the outside backs with the pace that Northeast presented and their trickiness. You get out on an island there and they can make you look really, really bad. For the most part we did a really good job of containing today. I think that speaks to the back four’s mentality of trying to defend as a unit and then Ryan trying to direct traffic behind them.”
La Salle will face the third-place finisher in District 3 – either Warwick or Mechanicsburg – in the first round of states Tuesday at a site and time to be determined.
“It’s great to be back,” Kalup said. “I was there my sophomore year. I’m excited to share this experience with these guys.”
La Salle 2, Northeast 0
La Salle 1 1 – 2
Northeast 0 0 – 0
Goals: LS: Finn Murray, CJ Massella.
Saves: LS: Ryan Kalup 3. N: Cameron Powers 11.
Corners: LS: 7. N: 3.
