Bellefonte boys tops rival Bald Eagle on Senior night

By Kenny Varner Jr.
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Updated: October 9, 2023

By Kenny Varner

BELLEFONTE – A Senior Night delight!

Off field friends became on field rivals Monday night when the Bald Eagle boys and Bellefonte soccer team renewed their annual rivalry. This time the location was at Bellefonte high school.

Both teams are looking to add momentum as they go into their last stretch of the regular season.

The old phrase, “throw away the records when these two team get together” never proved so true at the beginning of the game as each team, led by strong defensive efforts in the back-third, thwarted the other teams on numerous occasions.

Bellefonte’s Oliver Thornburg led the Red Raider offensive scoring posting two first half goals while teammate as Bellefonte went onto the 4-0 victory.

“Overall, I’m happy that the seniors on Senior night, the way they played tonight. I thought we moved the ball really, really well tonight,” said Bellefonte coach Scott Martz. “We controlled the tempo of the game and what we wanted to do. Ollie (Thornburg) finished with two beautiful goals. Overall, it was just a beautiful game tonight. They played really well.”

Teammate Brady Wertz added the final two in the second half.

Early on the two marched up and back trying to implement their offense.

Bellefonte tried to slow down the high tempo offense. They were successful numerous times as defender Tate Tooker was able to break up numerous breakaway attempts by cutting off the runner with a steal or kick out. The entire Red Raider defense including senior goalie Tyler Willits played strong enough to capture the shut out.

However, it would be Eagles defender Jake Richardson that would capture the attention with his sliding save to protect the Bald Eagle Area goal from an almost certain goal. The save kept the game a scoreless tie.

“He (Richardson) had save. My other two middle defenders had saves in goal on a play that Clay came out a little too far. The defense did its job,” said Bald Eagle coach Jason Bair said. “We got unfortunate when 15 (Thornburg) scored from outside on crazy shots. We came in wanting to shut down seven (Wertz) and 10 (Andy Gerasenko) and we did that in the first half and still trailed by two at the half. We had great opportunities to shoot on goal it just didn’t go in for us.”

The game would go through 25 minutes-plus of action before either team would light it up on the scoreboard.

With 14:49 left in the first, Thornburg hit a long shot from outside that sailed to the top of the net, giving the Red Raiders the lead on the unassisted goal.

Things continued grow more intense as the Eagles tried to round up a good look at the goal and the Red Raiders looked to increase the lead as the second half lingered.

As it looked as though Bellefonte would take the lone goal into the second, Bellefonte made one last statement before the half.

Again, Thornburg hit another blast from outside, upping the lead to 2-0.

Coming out of the intermission, the Red Raiders came out with the first possession of the half.

However, the Eagles defensive backfield and goalie Clayton Reigh continued to battle, keeping Bellefonte off the scoreboard.

The Red Raiders would get back on the board with 27:10 left in the game.

John Servant found teammate Brady Wertz for Bellefonte’s first goal of the second half, upping it to 3-0.

With only 7-minutes left, Wertz ended the scoring as he hit his second goal of the night, ending the contest as a 4-0 victory.