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By Neil Geoghegan
ngeoghegan@21st-centurymedia.com
EAST MARLBOUGH – The halftime speech. Whether fiery or tactical, or a bit of both, the end results are mixed at best.
On Wednesday, Unionville boys’ soccer coach Rich Garber and his staff focused on the latter and it worked spectacularly. His Longhorns were thoroughly outplayed in the first half, but a move to shore up the midfield turned everything around, leading to a 3-0 Unionville (4-2-1 overall) triumph.
“In the first half I thought we were losing the midfield, so we added another player in there and it seemed to settle us down a bit,” Garber explained.
“We played harder in the second half and we closed the gaps, which is something they hadn’t been doing.”
Author Mark Twain popularized the phrase that “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics.” It played out that way as the visiting Eagles (2-3-1) were dominant in the first half – notching the game’s first 10 shots on goal – but were unable to get any past ’Horns’ goalkeeper Jeremy Teufel. Even by the end, Shanahan still had a 13-9 edge.
“That’s soccer. If you don’t score when you have your chances – and we had plenty of them – frustration can seep in,” said Eagles’ head coach Mike Melesky.
“Credit to (Unionville’s) keeper. And I give full credit to coach Garber and his staff for keeping them in it in the first half.”
Scoreless at the half, Longhorns’ newcomer Peter Castellarin turned the game upside down when he scored twice in the span of one minute, 49 seconds in the early going on the second half. Unionville welcomed the unexpected production from the senior because two other seniors – leading scorer Charlie Undorf and center back Peter Steverlynck — were out with injuries.
“I didn’t know (Steverlynck) was out until 20 minutes before the game,” Garber said.
On the initial goal, a blast by Castellarin was knocked aside, but he proceeded to bury the rebound. Or was it?
“I thought the shot went in the first time, but it rebounded right in front of me and I knocked it back in,” he said.
And then less than two minutes later, Shanahan failed to clear a corner kick by Jax Pinkston and Castellarin put it in.
“I just turned into it and got lucky,” he recalled. “It was off my thigh.”
Castellarin lived in the Unionville-Chadds Ford School District until moving to Indiana when he was in seventh grade. But his family moved back this summer.
“He came out for the team on the first day of school. And he’s playing a position he’s not exactly comfortable with,” Garber said.
“He is a solid player, but this year is his first high school experience. This was his third game and he got the game winner against Downingtown East.”
Frustration continued to build for Shanahan, and with 16:43 remaining, team captain Michael Ziegler was assessed a red card, which left the Eagles a man down. Twenty seven seconds later, the Longhorns scored the final goal, from senior midfielder Tavo Schnabel off an assist by Castellarin.
It didn’t help things when Shanahan’s Evan Dooley appeared to score with 9:50 to go, but it was waved off by the officials.
“Some unfortunate things happened at the end that impacted our ability to come back,” Melesky said.
“I think our guys got a little impatient after not scoring in the first half. I saw what (Unionville) did tactically, and it was good, but I think the difference was that we got away from our game when we got too eager to score.”
A junior, Teufel turned aside 11 shots, all in the first half. His backup, Derek Hall, wrapped up the shutout.
“Jeremy’s been great all season,” Garber said. “Against Haverford, he made some incredible saves that kept us in the game and we finally got the result late.
“And he got us out of trouble a lot today.”
In addition to having more shots on goal, the Eagles had a slight edge in corner kicks (5-4), but still were unable to score.
“Sometimes it’s not how many shots, but the right shots,” Castellarin said.
“We just have to put this behind us and learn from it,” Melesky added.
Unionville 3, Bishop Shanahan 0
Bishop Shanahan 0 0 — 0
Unionville 0 3 — 3
Unionville goals: Castellarin 2, Schnabel.
Goalie saves: Ross (BS) 6; Teufel (U) 11; Hall (U) 2.
