C.B. South ousts Pennsbury in district playoffs

A pulled quadriceps muscle kept Central Bucks South's Maddie Vitelli out of action last week, when the Titans closed the girls' soccer regular season with a surprising loss to Hatboro-Horsham, a narrow win over Pennsbury, and a scoreless tie against Central Bucks West.

The week's performance likely didn't help the Titans during Sunday's seedings meeting for the District 1 Class AAA playoffs. South, which won the spring District 1 Class AAA crown before Suburban One League schools switched over to playing in the fall this school year, ended up seeded 15th.

Tuesday, Vitelli and her teammates showed they could be the best 10-3-6 team in the area by beating 18th-seeded Pennsbury for the second time this season, 3-2.

The Titans advance to the second round of the playoffs Thursday against No. 2 seed Downingtown East, the defending District 1 fall champion. The Cougars drew a first-round bye.

The Falcons finished 12-6-1.

Vitelli, a junior, scored her first two goals of the season to help South build a 3-0 halftime lead. Pennsbury scored two late goals after South coach Joe Bocklet began substituting liberally midway through the second half.

Bocklet moved Vitelli, who usually plays a midfield position, to a forward spot against Pennsbury, and it paid off big-time.

"It put me closer to the goal," said Vitelli, who scored the first two goals of the game. Her header made it 2-0 with 6 minutes, 20 seconds to play in the first half.

Senior forward Lauren Buchanan-Dwyer added another South goal 40 seconds later.

"We have a good deal of experience and speed," Bocklet said, "and we tried to take advantage of them against Pennsbury. This team has a lot of leadership. Defensively, we tried to not let [Pennsbury senior] Molly Phillips dribble at us, and we did a pretty good job of going that."

Phillips is one of the Falcons' top offensive weapons.

The Falcons scored their goals with less than five minutes left. Junior Lindsey Jones scored the first on a penalty kick with 4:25 to go. A header by Kersten Formento capped the scoring with 1:13 left.

"Five minutes is not a whole lot of time left when you need to score three goals," Falcons coach Kaitlyn Battiste said, referring to the 3-0 hole her team found itself in late in the game. "South beat us to the 50-50 balls. They do a very good job with their transition and off-the-ball play."

Pennsbury   0 2 – 2

Central Bucks South   3 0 – 3

Goals: P-Lindsey Jones, Kersten Formento; CBS-Maddie Vitelli 2, Lauren Buchanan-Dwyer.

Saves: P-Shannon Kehoe 6; CBS-Meghan Kaminski 4.