Bentworth ready for a battle in state final
Bentworth knows it will be in for a brutal match against Lancaster Mennonite this afternoon in the PIAA Class A boys soccer championship final at Eagle View Middle School’s soccer complex in Mechanicsburg.
The Bearcats will also be without senior defender Gaige Davenport, who suffered an ankle injury with 18:27 remaining in the second of Tuesday’s state semifinal.
Despite playing a solid team and being down a starter, Bentworth coach Nick Malarbi is confident his club will be ready to go when the first whistle blows at 4 p.m.
The Bearcats (22-0-0) will be playing in the state final for the first time in program history.
“They beat Camp Hill, who is traditionally a solid program, and even though it was a little tougher to find information about them online, they are good,” Malarbi said. “But, if they got this far, why would they not be good? They have seen them play a similar and a little different formation than us, which usually depends on the opponent and how the game is going.”
Malarbi had a feeling following Tuesday’s semifinal that Davenport would have needed a quick recovery to play in today’s final.
“We had a feeling that he probably wasn’t going to be able to play in the finals,” Malarbi said. “Luckily, we have some guys that have playoff experience, and we look at some more film and make a determination on how we are going to rotate out of that.”
Lancaster Mennonite (13-3-3) was the District 3 runner-up to Camp Hill, but defeated the Lions, 1-0, on Tuesday in the state semifinals.
The Blazers are led in scoring by senior forward Msafiri Amisi, who has 20 goals and eight assists. He scored the game-winning goal against Camp Hill. Fellow senior David Lapp has 10 goals and six assists, and sophomore Cooper Halvorsen has seven goals and 11 assists.
Freshman keeper Lucas Kratz has 97 saves and nine shutouts.
Lancaster Mennonite is seeking its second state championship after winning the Class 2A title in 2011. The Blazers were runners-up in 2012, ’14 and ’17.