BMS falls to veteran Brockway team in opening round of PIAAs

By Kenny Varner Jr.
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Updated: November 15, 2020

Brockway 4, BMS 0

BMS 0 0 – 0

BRO 3 1 – 4

Scoring

BRO – Dom Inzana unassisted, 29:36.

BRO – Dylan Antonuccio assisted from Marcus Bennett, 17:10.

BRO – Nolan Swanson unassisted, 12:21.

Second half

BRO – Swanson unassisted, 6:07.

Shots on goal – Brockway 18, BMS 7.

Corners – 12, BMS 2.

Saves – Aiden Reed (BMS) 11, Dylen Coder 3.

By Kenny Varner

BROCKWAY – The historic season for the Belleville Mennonite boys soccer team quietly came to an end Saturday in the first round of the PIAA Class A playoffs as the Thunder fell 4-0 to the Rovers.

“This wasn’t the way I envisioned this ending. I liked the way we prepared and practiced the last two to three days. I was hoping to end with a little more competitive result,” said BMS coach Brian Renno. “I felt like we were prepared. We had some of our best practices coming into game and we had some of our best games leading up to today. I was a little surprised with our mental capacity on the field once we started.”

Leading the way offensively for Brockway was Nolan Swanson who posted two goals and led the offensive charge on the night.

Belleville got a strong effort by its backline and goalie Aiden Reed who tallied 11 saves on the afternoon.

“I felt like Brockway started out physical and aggressive and they made their intent to go after the ball from the get go and I thought that affected our psyche from the get go,” said Renno. “The way they played in the first half is the way we played against Bishop Carroll and West Shamokin and we had good results.”

In the first half, the Rovers led things off by taking the ball down into the back-third of the Thunder’s side of the field.

Early on, the defense seemed up to the challenge as it fended off Brockway for the first 10 minutes of the game, despite having to fight through three early corner opportunities by the Rovers.

Even when Brockway scored at 29:36, it would be off a strong save by Reed that ricochet off his hands right to the foot of a rushing Dom Inzana who was at the right place at the right time to send it back into the goal, making it 1-0.

Defensively, BMS got back on its feet and again tightened the defensive side of the ball.

Unfortunately, the Thunder had a hard time putting a substantial drive in the Riverside of the field as the Brockway defense proved to be almost impenetrable in the first half.

But just a little past the halfway mark of the stanza, the Rovers found themselves another goal when Dylan Antonuccio scored off an assist from Marcus Bennett, at 17:10.

But the Thunder kept plugging away still trying to pick up its first goal and trying to cut into the deficit.

However, with just 12:21 left in the half Swanson hit his first goal on a straight on blast,ending the first half scoring at 3-0.

Brockway held the advantage 12-5 in the shots on goal department and led in corners by a 4-2 margin.

Coming out of the intermission, the Thunder defense stiffened as it battled off eight corner opportunities by the Rovers and was looking to keep their opponents without a goal in the period.

Despite their best efforts, Swanson was able to sneak one last goal I. Before the contest was over, finishing the game on a 4-1 first round win.

However, the Thunder finished the season with its first District 6 championship and a season that they were just happy to be playing.

“Going into the season we are just thankful that we had a season and that we were able to play. It was a

challenge to get through season but the players stayed healthy and we were fortunate to have a full season,” said Renno. “ Coming into the season, I didn’t honestly expect to get this far. I knew we could together a successful season. We had a big group of freshman coming in. The question was how quickly are they going to mature and how quickly are they going to bond with the upper classman we already had here. From day one it seemed like the upperclassman were willing to work with them and bring them along.”

“As we went through the season, we had our ups and downs. But fortunately towards the end of the season we had a good heart to heart talk one day at practice and it seemed like it was able to right to ship. We were able to get ourselves back together and organized for the stretch run we had.”