Lansdale Catholic falls to Lewisburg in PIAA-2A quarterfinals

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MANCHESTER >> Lansdale Catholic ran into quite an opponent on Saturday.

“If they don’t win the state title, I’m gonna be very surprised,” Crusaders coach Casey Farrell said of Lewisburg.

The Dragons sped away to a 2-0 victory over LC in the PIAA-2A Quarterfinals at Northeastern’s Bobcat Stadium. The win advanced Lewisburg to Tuesday’s state semis against New Hope Solebury.

A tremendous season came to a close for Lansdale Catholic.

Lewisburg broke a scoreless tie seven minutes into the second half, off the foot of Anthony Bhangdia. Threading the needle with flawless passing and using its speed on the outside, the Dragons doubled their lead to 2-0 with 18 minutes to play, with Bhangdia again finishing the deal.

“They had speed all over the field,” Farrell said. “We didn’t get here based on scoring 50 goals a game. What we hang our hats on is defense. And I think it’s one of those things where they came out in the second half firing on all cylinders. They kind of caught us off guard here and there and we were trying to pick up the pieces.”

The Crusaders couldn’t quite put together that right combination to cut the lead in half.

Goalie Kellan Ward made some nice stops for the Crusaders to keep the team within striking distance. Jimmy Alff, C.J. McNally, Cory Toburen, Declan MacKay, Matt McDougal, Eric Fernandez, Evan Senour, Owen Webster, Brendan McKay and Seal Cole battled one last time this year for the Crusaders on a windy, cold day on the turf.

“The season we’ve had, where we got to from where we started, with all of the ups and downs we’ve had, I couldn’t be more proud,” Farrell said. “We’re a small school playing in the big, bad PCL. And you can’t say we didn’t fight every team we played.

“(Today) there was a minute and a half left in the game and we’re down 2-0, and one of our kids is bleeding out of the nose. We have kids running around like crazy out there. The effort was there. The defense was there. A couple slipped past us and that’s the way it goes sometimes. But I can’t be disappointed with these guys.”

PIAA-2A Quarterfinals
Lewisburg 2, Lansdale Catholic 0
Lewisburg 0 2 – 2
Lansdale Catholic 0 0 – 0
Second Half
L-Anthony Bhangdia, 33:27; L-Bhangdia, 18:30.

Kev Hunter

Kevin Hunter
Kev Hunter is a sports reporter for Montco Media. He has been a staff writer for The Reporter Newspaper in Lansdale since 2000. Prior to that, he covered sports for The Day Newspaper in New London, Conn. He began his writing career at The Courier-Post in South Jersey, along with covering prep football in Pa. for The Philadelphia Inquirer.

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