BROCKWAY — The Bradford Owls found themselves on the losing end of four games, including three in which they had the lead, during an eight-game stretch near the end of the regular season. 

But Wes Lohrman was confident that his team had learned from those tough losses and were better equipped to handle close games because of it. 

Thursday night, the boys proved their coach right. 

In a back-and-forth game that didn’t see the Owls net the winning goal until 17 minutes left in the second half, it was Bradford’s experience and finishing ability that sent it to a 3-2 win over Clearfield to earn a second straight District 9 Class AAA championship. 

For Lohrman, Thursday’s victory marks his eighth D9 title — including three in the past four seasons —  over 15 years with the program. But he admits that something about this team, with this group of 16 seniors, felt different. 

“I was thinking about this on the way down here that we’ve won a few of these in program history and each one is different; it’s never the same feeling,” he said. “We have a large group of seniors, so when they are able to go out and accomplish one of the goals that they set for themselves and to be able to celebrate this with the fans and their parents and families, it’s fun. I enjoy being a part of it and I’m happy for the guys that they were able to achieve this victory tonight.

“It was a stressful game, it was a challenging game. I’m happy.”

The game featured everything you’d expect in a championship contest: physical play, a few top-notch saves, and plenty of high-intensity scoring opportunities for both teams. 

Ian Grady opened the scoring for the Owls (15-5) 15 minutes into the game when he converted on a free kick from inside the 20-yard-line. The shot, which glanced off the hands of Clearfield (13-3) goalie Graeson Graves, was Bradford’s third goal off a free kick in the last two games. 

But Clearfield answered less than four minutes later. After a push in the box drew a penalty kick, the Bison’s Andrew Lopez buried his opportunity.

The remainder of the half was scoreless, despite plenty of high quality scoring chances from both teams. 

“We didn’t really know what to expect, but we did not expect it to be this tight,” Lohrman admitted. “But (Clearfield head coach Todd Trinidad) did a great job preparing his team. They came out, they were very physical and they started attacking our back line.”

Bradford opened the scoring again in the second half after some fantastic passing from Isaiah Pingie and Colton Swanson. Following a Swanson shot, Ryan Miller buried a rebound past Graves to put the Owls back on top. 

Bradford led 2-1 for only a few minutes. Another penalty was called and again it was Lopez who took the shot, finding the back of the net a second time. 

Undeterred, the Owls controlled possession for the following few minutes until Grady found a loose ball off a Swanson shot that nicked the crossbar, and beat the goalie for his second of the game. 

Bradford played the ball in the Clearfield half of the field for most of the rest of the night and held on from there to secure the victory. 

“I’m glad that we did have these challenges earlier in our season because three games ago we might have given this game away,” Lohrman said. “We’ve been in scenarios where that has happened. We’ve learned from that, and (Thursday) I think we were able to overcome and learn from our mistakes earlier.”

Outside of the two penalty kicks allowed, Bradford goalie Evan Schmidt was phenomenal in net. He made 13 saves, and Lohrman couldn’t say enough about the play of his veteran goalie afterwards. 

“I feel like I’m kind of being a record player here, but we ask him to make the saves each game and then get the support from the guys up top. He had a few shots that came in that he was in the right place at the right time, and Evan covers his angles really well.” 

“I was going back through some old records in the 15 years that I’ve been coaching the program and he has the most saves in history with 461. He leads our program with 23 total shutouts.”

Bradford rarely allowed any kind of sustained pressure from the Bison, and because of a deep bench, were the faster and stronger team when it mattered most late. 

But it was one specific substitution that Lohrman thought sparked that strong play on the back end. 

“We were kind of being pressured in the middle, we weren’t able to get control and Alex (Marrone) came in and started winning some balls out of the air and started distributing and from there I think from there we started to see a change in the flow of the game,” he said.  

Unofficially, the Owls outshot Clearfield 30-20 in the game. Graves made 10 stops for the Bison, which have now lost to Bradford in three consecutive playoff games. 

For Bradford, its season continues either next week in a sub-regional game against Obama Academy (if it chooses to enter) or in two weeks in the first round of the PIAA postseason. 

Either way, Lohrman gets at least one more game to coach this group of seniors, a group that put an exclamation point on their Bradford soccer careers with Thursday’s victory. 

“They’ve been together for a long time; they really know each other,” he said. “They tell themselves that they are brothers but this is one of those groups that I’ve worked with that you actually kind of feel that familial relationship between them. 

“They treat each other like brothers, and sometimes they fight like brothers. But at the end of the day, they are always pushing each other to be better, stronger, faster and to work harder. And that was necessary (Thursday); they needed all of those things to be successful in the game.”