Meadville battles McDowell to the buzzer in 3-2 loss

The Meadville boys soccer team celebrated seniors Jimmy Stone and Graham Shellhaas during the team’s senior night at Bender Field on Tuesday. Meadville took on McDowell for a Region 5 showdown. Meadville (5-3, 3-3) came into the game one game behind McDowell (5-3, 5-1) for second place in the region.

It was important for the Bulldogs to come out strong, but there was no energy from their side.

“They just came out lethargic, just a little bit,” Bulldogs’ head coach Jim Miller said.

McDowell struck four minutes into the game off a bad turnover to take the early lead.

Meadville struggled to break through the tight McDowell defense and the Trojans were able to keep Meadville on its heels with almost all of the offense taking place in Meadville’s end.

The Trojans’ Tyler Perkins found a hole through the Bulldogs’ defense for a fast break on goalkeeper Riley Shaw who made one of many incredible saves.

On the following corner kick, McDowell’s Andrew Moyak headed the ball into the net for the 2-0 lead in the 13th minute.

From this point on, the game became extremely physical. Two yellow cards were given out and an increase in penalties ensued during the remainder of the game.

With the slowness the Bulldogs showed to this point and the with extra physicality, their offense came to a halt. McDowell had Meadville stuck in its own end until Shellhaas broke up the ball two separate times, but both were lost opportunities.

The struggle for Meadville in the game, but especially in the first half, was winning the ball battle.

“I would like to see a consistency in winning those 50/50 balls,” Miller said.

In the 31st minute, Shellhaas battled against McDowell’s Moyak for a ball. Moyak took down Shellhaas and was given the first of the aforementioned yellow cards. Shellhaas set up to kick a free kick for the Bulldogs and he nailed it home to cut the deficit to one.

“They get one goal and you see the fire in them,” Miller said. “They fight tooth and nail.”

Fight the Bulldogs did, as they dominated the end of the first half.

The Bulldogs pushed for the tying goal and Shellhaas had a chance to tie it, but McDowell goalkeeper Joseph Clark made a huge save to keep the lead for the Trojans.

The half ended with momentum swinging to Meadville and a chance to come out with fire in the second.

The fire inside of the Bulldogs continued as Kael Armstrong had a chance stopped in the 42nd minute.

Two minutes later the aggressiveness flared up again. This time Meadville received a yellow card on Seamus Miller. McDowell did not gain the same luck Meadville had on its free kick attempt, as Tejas Kanhere missed high through the uprights.

After dodging a bullet, Meadville continued to burn hot, but only defensively. The Bulldogs fell into another period of time where they could not win the 50/50 balls, but this time their defense clamped down on any McDowell attack.

The Bulldogs finally got the ball going the other way and Meadville put on full pressure looking for the tying goal.

Shellhaas found the ball in the 71st minute off an amazing team effort by the Bulldogs to tie the game, 2-2.

The dominos began to line up for Meadville to at least take this game to overtime, but the tying goal lit McDowell’s own fire.

The Trojans fought back hard to get the lead back and off a series of Meadville errors, Sean Nies hit a slow rolling ball past Shaw to grab the lead again in the 77th minute.

“On that third goal there was a domino effect of errors,” Miller said.

Meadville pushed back at the end to get to overtime, but it was not enough. Meadville has three region losses in four games.

Miller was animated after the game in his talk to his players. He has been trying to beat McDowell his entire 24 year coaching career and coming up one goal short was painful for him and the program.

“You don’t know how much a win like that would mean to a program like ours,” Miller said. “It would be the last key to the puzzle.”

Even with the loss, Miller is ready for the battle to the end of the season and he knows his team is almost at the top of the hill.

“A 3-2 loss is momentum for us, but it’s not over the hill yet,” Miller said.

Meadville looks to get back in the Region 5 win column when they travel to Oil City for a 6:30 p.m. game on Thursday.