It was the most 2020 way to end the high school boys soccer regular season.

With 4:27 to go in the first half of Bradford’s regular season finale Wednesday against Port Allegany at Parkway Field, a power outage in town caused the stadium lights and scoreboard to lose power with the Owls leading by a score of 2-0.

The rest of the first half was played since there was still daylight, but the game was delayed at halftime.

Later on, the game was eventually called with the power not expected to come back on until 10 p.m., according to Bradford athletic director Mike Erickson. The expectation is that the game will stand as a 2-0 win for the Owls, which would improve their record to a perfect 14-0 regular season record. The loss would drop the Gators to 4-9-1 on the year.

The power outage wasn’t actually the first one Bradford head coach Wes Lohrman had gone through. He went through one years ago in DuBois during a state playoff game.

“Actually, Mr. Erickson was the athletic director of DuBois at that time, so I’m going to blame him for the power outage tonight,” Lohrman said with a laugh.

Recording Bradford’s two goals were Jaydon Warnick at the 27:38 mark in the first half and Cam Austin with 19:08 left until halftime. Austin also recorded an assist. In goal, Bradford’s Zach Williams tallied three saves, as Port A goalkeeper Ty Guilds registered 14 saves.

“He’s in my opinion, one of the top three players in District 9 soccer this year,” Port A head coach Aaron Clark said. “Game in and game out, Ty is our best player.”

Port A was without leading scorer River Cramer, who had a sprained ankle, according to Clark, and Bradford’s varsity players were back in the lineup after the team’s junior varsity players led the Owls to a 5-3 win over Northern Potter Monday night.

Lohrman was pleased with the team’s performance during the game’s only half, especially the team’s ball movement.

“It was some of the best ball movement that we have seen to this point in the year, which is what we want at this time of the year,” Lohrman said. “Coach Conneely and I were talking when the lights went off and we were saying we really hoped that they came back on because we were really having a strong performance out there.”

For Port A, the team’s season has come to an end as they won’t be competing in the District 9 playoffs.

Clark said the emphasis for the team coming into this year was to enjoy the season as much as possible due to the uncertainty of fall sports at the time during this COVID-19 pandemic.

“When we had our first practices, we didn’t know if we were going to get a week of practice, two weeks or a month. I coach track as well and one of the worst feelings ever as a coach was losing the spring track season,” Clark said.

“While we didn’t win a lot of games, we enjoyed ourselves and I was proud of the effort our players put forth even when we were not the better team on the field, we worked hard, we enjoyed ourselves and I’m proud of our seniors and our leadership for that.”

For Bradford, the Owls will soon compete in the District 9 playoffs.

Lohrman has emphasized the importance of the Owls using all parts of the field ahead of the postseason, but something else that’s also critical is the continued hard work and the effort from the players.

“This is not obviously an individual sport,” Lohrman said. “We have to move forward as a team…We need to make sure that we’re moving around and providing as many opportunities to create scoring chances as we can. We can’t have anybody walking out there. Everybody needs to be working hard for 80 minutes.

“Moving forward, the teams that we’re going to play are going to be ready to go because now again, and I’m glad that I get to say this, it’s win or go home and I was uncertain at times if we were going to make it to this point, but we find ourselves here now, so we need to make sure that everybody’s on the same page and I saw really good signs of that in the first half.”

Lohrman said he’s hoping to know who Bradford will be facing in the postseason as well as the location and time of the game by the end of the day on Thursday or Friday.

As far as getting the team ready for the postseason, Lohrman said all he and the rest of the coaches can do is make sure the team has confidence going in.

“Moving into a playoff game where it is that scenario where if we don’t win, our season’s over, that’s going to bring some nerves and anxiety and stress, especially to players who have not had a lot of time doing that,” Lohrman said.

“So really all we can do as a staff is make sure that they’re confident enough in what they are doing as an individual and as a team so that when they step on the field, that quick wave of nervousness washes away as soon as the game starts and then they just resort back to what they know. I feel that with this group of players, they’re going to be ready to go.”