
By Neil Geoghegan
ngeoghegan@21st-centurymedia.com
EAST WHITELAND – If you want to calculate just how competitive boys’ soccer is in the Ches-Mont American, all you have to do is consider what happened Wednesday at Unionville.
The shorthanded Longhorns entered the day saddled with a four-game losing skid and looking for their first division win. Visiting Great Valley, on the other hand, sits atop the division standings and had outscored its last four foes by a combined 19 goals. And the resulting 2-2 overtime draw really wasn’t a huge surprise.
“We knew (Unionville) had just lost to Oxford. That kind of gets in our head that they are not going to be very good, but we know (Unionville) is notoriously good,” said Great Valley senior Jack Weikert.
“I give our kids credit – we played hard,” added ’Horns head coach Rich Garber. “We talked Tuesday and said that the beginning of the season starts today. We can’t change the past.”
The Patriots (3-0-1, 8-2-1 overall) never trailed on Wednesday, and entered the clash seventh in the latest District 1 4A power rankings. But each time Great Valley scored, Unionville kept coming back. That’s one reason the two sides had completely different thoughts on the outcome.
“This almost feels like a loss to us. We have to work on finishing, and putting games away,” Weikert said.
“We played our hardest,” added Longhorns’ junior Daniel Harkins. “It was unfortunate we did not get the win, but we proved to ourselves that we can compete with anybody.”
Weikert opened the scoring about 10 minutes in by converting a loose ball after a corner kick. It came moments after Unionville keeper Jeremy Teufel made a spectacular diving save to set up the set piece.
Harkins tied it for the Longhorns in the opening minutes of the second half after taking a perfect pass from teammate Jax Pinkston. The two sides then traded very similar goals, the first by Patriots’ sophomore Dachi Kikvidze, followed by another from Harkins with 16:12 remaining. Kikvidze beat Teufel to a loose ball and scored, and then Harkins did the same against Great Valley keeper Tyler Holmes.
“Today was the first time in a while that we got goals in the flow of the game,” Garber pointed out. “It was nice to see Daniel step up. He is new to the varsity.”
Harkins added: “At that point it was just effort, and who wants it more. Throughout the season we’ve had issues with effort, but today we showed we had that effort.”

Patriots’ head coach Dave Moffett thought that his squad took its collective foot off the gas after taking leads of 1-0 and 2-1.
“We were solid and then we tend to switch off and that created some opportunities to let (Unionville) back into the game, twice,” he said. “That’s the real frustration.
“We just can’t fall asleep. There is no time in the game where we can switch off. Sometimes there are self-inflicted wounds that end up hurting us.”
The Pats’ Owen Peters had a couple chances to end it late in regulation, but Teufel came up with two saves in succession. In the first overtime, Teufel made another diving save of a blast by Kikvidze. And later, Great Valley midfielder Sean Mahoney had a shot bounce off the crossbar.
“We are going to create a lot of (scoring) chances, that’s just the team we are,” Moffett said. “We just need to increase our finishing rate and make life easier for ourselves. We had a couple we should have put away.
“But we are a good team — we are dangerous. It’s just learning to get results in games that if you have enough opportunities, you should win it.”
The statistics were slanted toward the visitors as the Patriots had a clear edge in corner kicks (10-2) and shots on the goal (22-10). But Teufel wound up turning aside 20 shots.
“It is a frustration that we had so many chances, but credit to (Unionville’s) goalkeeper, who made some incredible saves,” Moffett said.
The Longhorns (0-3-1, 4-6-2) needed a spirited effort because the squad was without seven players, including senior forward Charlie Undorf (back injury) and two others who received red cards versus Oxford (a 2-1 setback).
“If we had played like we did today against teams we’ve just lost to, we would have been fine in those games,” Garber said. “I told them if we can get that kind of effort every game, we will be successful.
“We showed the kind of fight we haven’t really seen before. Great Valley is a great side, but we hung in there.”
Great Valley 2, Unionville 2 (2 OT)
Great Valley 1 1 0 0 – 2
Unionville 0 2 0 0 — 2
Great Valley goals: Weikert, Kikvidze.
Unionville goals: Harkins 2.
Goalie saves: Holmes (GV) 8; Teufel (U) 20.