WHEELING — The always-intense Wheeling Park-Morgantown High boys’ soccer rivalry delivered another chapter in a familiar setting Saturday at Wheeling Island Stadium.
The two teams duked it out in an OVAC 5A championship game, a rematch of last year’s matchup for the conference crown.
Though the Mohigans and Patriots played a close game through the first half and into the second, Wheeling Park scored three goals in the last 20 minutes of play to run away with their fourth straight OVAC championship in a 6-1 triumph.
“It feels good, for those kids,” Wheeling Park head coach Mario Julian said of his senior class, who have now won OVAC titles each year of their high school career. “They’ve worked so hard every day in practice to be able to accomplish things like an OVAC Championship. It’s a tournament of our valley, and it means a lot to these kids.”
For Wheeling Park, Wilson Hanna collected three goals for a hat trick, scoring the first and last goals of the game, while Tresz McLeod scored a pair of goals, including his 100th goal of his career.
“He broke the school record against George Washington, the reigning state champions, and then to get his 100th goal in the OVAC championship, I can’t say enough about him,” Julian said. “He just is such a complete player and is so dangerous out there. Everything he does is because of how hard he works. He’s driven to be the best and I’m just proud of him.”
Josh Albrecht also scored for Wheeling Park. Morgantown’s Anthony Vessecchia scored the Mohigans’ lone goal of the day.
Morgantown possessed the ball to a near-even split with Wheeling Park in the first half, but Park’s backline of Albrecht, Evan Border, Aiden Wehrle and Max Seibert constantly kept the Mohigans one touch away from lining up a good shot on-frame.
Patriots keeper Gavin Border did his part as well. Border made a remarkable save in a one-on-one situation after a poor pass was intercepted by Morgantown in front of the goal in the 37th minute.
That was one of multiple barely-missed opportunities for the Mohigans in the first half. A shot by Morgantown’s Riley Brabson was inches away from converting in the 34th minute, instead bouncing off the crossbar and out of bounds.
Hanna had given Park a quick 1-0 lead in the opening minutes of the game, but with less than 60 seconds before the half, it seemed as if the game would stay at a slim one-score advantage– that is, until Tresz McLeod rose above a crowd of players and blasted a “somehow” header off a corner kick for his 100th goal.
The goal seemed to reanimate Wheeling Park going into the locker rooms.
“I thought the defense held up very well,” Julian said. “We knew [Morgantown] had a striker who had a lot of goals, we knew he was dangerous. I thought they came in with a great plan, trying to limit our scoring offense. Getting that second goal right before the half, I thought that gave us a big boost going into halftime. It was a pretty even game up until that point. The way that we came out in the second half and got that third goal, I thought that settled things down for us. We were able to finish the way we wanted to.”
Wilson Hanna ripped a shot on the right wing with a defender draped over him in the 53rd minute for his second goal of the game, but Morgantown responded just a few minutes later, Vessecchia pounding through a close-range shot int he 60th minute to get on the board, trailing 3-1.
It was all Patriots from there on out though. Albrecht scored on a header of his own off a corner kick in the 62nd minute, while McLeod and Hanna each tallied extra goals in the final 10 minutes of action to remove any possibility of late-game drama.
With the OVAC Tournament behind them, both teams look to the back-half of their seasons. Wheeling Park plays Linsly on Oct. 2, while Morgantown travels to face Brooke on Oct. 3.
— Story by Nick HENTHORN/The Intelligencer and Wheeling News-Register
