BROCKWAY — The location, the stakes and plenty of the players on the Bradford boys soccer roster remain the same from the past few seasons.
The difference, in this trip for the Owls to the District 9 Class AAA title game: the opponent.
Bradford heads back to Varischetti Field in Brockway tonight at 6 o‘clock to face top-seeded Clearfield and for a chance to repeat as D9 champs.
For 16 seniors on Bradford’s roster, it’s the third consecutive trip to the title game, something that coach Wes Lohrman hopes will help his team during those first few high-pressure moments.
“Going into a game like this is something that weighs on the players’ minds and there are always going to be those jitters,”he said. “But I think once the game starts those guys are going to be able to get over them quicker.”
Despite not playing each other in the regular season, Clearfield and Bradford are far from strangers. The Owls have bested the Bison in the semifinal round of the playoffs in back-to-back years, and did not concede a goal in either contest.
“We do know very little about them (this year),” Lohrman admitted. “All we can do is focus on what we’ve been working on. We’ve been exposed to a lot of different styles over 18 regular season games and we are set up to play our style and hopefully have them adjust to us rather than the other way around.”
The Bison went 13-2 on the season, playing the likes of Philipsburg-Osceola and Huntington in the Mountain League. Clearfield last won a District 9 title when it beat DuBois in 2016 — also as the top seed that year.
Lohrman has coached in plenty of big games during his 15 seasons as Bradford’s head coach, and says that what he and his players do in-game is as critical as the preparation leading up to it.
“(Wednesday) at practice we kind of focused in on a variety of situations when we were playing with lead and playing with behind. Game management is going to be important.
“I have my coaches with me who can recommend any tactical switches we need to make in-game,” Lohrman said. “With this many seniors, they know me and I know them and they know how I would go about changing something. We just have to play our style.”
A big part of Bradford’s style, of course, is getting the ball onto the foot of its playmakers. The Owls had four different players score in their 5-2 semifinal win over DuBois, including the 27th tally of the year for Ian Grady and 16th of the season for Colton Swanson — despite the latter missing most of it with injury.
Not only has Bradford overcome various injuries this year, but they have also been able to shake off a rough ending to the regular season which saw them lose three different games where they held the lead.
Lohrman is confident his team can build on those experiences in a do-or-die game tonight — with a PIAA berth, and the season, on the line.
“At the end of the day, at the end of those games, we got to go back and practice and learn from those losses and use it in games now,” he said. “Because if we don’t learn from those previous mistakes, we will be finished.
“And for some of those guys that would mean the end and onto the next phase of their career. I don’t think they are ready for that.”
