BROCKWAY — Entering the District 9 Class AA semifinals against Punxsutawney, Port Allegany knew it would have just a handful of chances to score on the Chucks and would have to hang tough defensively in between those opportunities.

Through 65 of the game’s 80 minutes, the Gators managed to do so, as they held serve with Punxsy late into the game despite being vastly outshot.

But in the last 15 minutes, the shot volume became too much, as the Chucks scored a trio of goals to advance past the Gators, 4-1, and into the D9 championship.

“We changed our formation to get a little bit of pressure there at the end, and we left ourselves open defensively,” Gator (12-5) head coach Aaron Clark said following the loss. “Punxsutawney is a good team, and they took advantage of that.”

Port Allegany managed to jump out to an initial 1-0 lead at the 23:43 mark of the first half. After the Gators drew a foul, Ricky Phillips sent a free kick into the box from 35 yards out, and striker Howie Stuckey headed it home for the advantage.

But just eight minutes later, Punxsy’s Vincent Gigliotti tallied his first goal of an eventual hat trick on a strike from the edge of the box to knot things up at 1-1.

The Gators had two more good looks before the half ended, but failed to convert those opportunities.

The first came with 14:11 left in the period, when a Chuck foul gave Port Allegany a free kick from the left sideline, about 30 yards out. Gator midfielder Simon Burleson struck the ball well, but it soared high of the net and out of bounds.

Then, with 7:56 left in the half, Stuckey drew a foul in the box and was awarded a penalty kick. However, Chucks goalkeeper Jacob Ebel made a diving save to his left to maintain the tie going into the break. Ebel finished with four saves on the night.

“Every time we’re up against a superior opponent, it’s about playing defense and converting on the few opportunities that we get. Tonight we were just on the losing end of it,” Clark said. “We had our opportunities. We scored on the set piece, but missed out on the PK. If we score on that PK, maybe this game goes a different way.”

In between those precious few chances, Gator goalkeeper Ty Guilds was putting up perhaps his best performance of the season to keep his team in the game.

Despite facing 12 shots on goal in the first half, Guilds managed to allow just one by him on the Gigliotti goal, and was routinely stopping threatening Chuck passes into the box. He finished the game with 14 saves.

It was much the same in the second half, as Punxsy put up 16 more shots, six of which went on target. In all, the Chucks outshot Port Allegany 32-9, thanks in large part to dominating possession time.

And up until that final Chuck surge, Guilds was there to stave off the threats.

“(Ty) was our player of the game, hands down,” Clark said of the sophomore netminder. “I can’t say enough good things about him, and I wouldn’t trade him for a single goalie we’ve seen this season.”

But eventually the Punxsy possession and shots overwhelmed Guilds and the Gator defense.

Gigliotti hammered in his second goal, this one from about 20 yards out, to give the Chucks a 2-1 lead with 14:50 to go, and then added another on a cross from John Mizerock just 87 seconds later to push that advantage to 3-1.

Then, with 3:15 left in the game, Zach Reitz added an insurance goal to give Punxsutawney its 4-1 lead.

Meanwhile, Port Allegany mustered just two shots in the entire second half, and those didn’t come until the final eight minutes of the game. The Gators attempted multiple passes over the top trying to break Stuckey loose, but the Punxsy defense kept him bottled up throughout the night.

In addition, Port Allegany struggled to connect more than one or two passes in a single possession, and turned the ball back over to Punxsutawney quite a bit.

“We were struggling to keep possession,” Clark admitted. “I think our players, when they got the ball, they were panicking and just (passing) it into space, and that was the problem. We just had so little possession that once we got it, we struggled to do a lot with that possession.”

Punxsutawney will face Karns City for the D9 Class AA championship next week.