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Chambersburg holds off State College, 1-0


For Chambersburg, the last 10 minutes of its boys soccer game Saturday morning against State College probably felt more like 30 minutes.

Nevertheless, the Trojans weathered a storm of pressure and hung on for a 1-0 Mid Penn Commonwealth Division victory  at Trojan Stadium, making up for a 1-0 loss to the Little Lions to open the season and vaulting them over SC into third place.

Chambersburg (6-2-1, 5-2 MPC) has now gone seven games without a loss.

"We've had guys out, and at one point today we had three sophomores and two freshman on the field, but we've been able to keep rolling," Trojan coach Corey Grove said.

Until the final 10 minutes, Chambersburg goalkeeper Jacob Dougal hadn't been called on, but he was busy for that final stretch. State College had at least five free kicks and a corner kick during that time, and most were dangerous. With just over a minute left, Dougal needed a quick reaction to tip a ball over the goal.

"Their set pieces were really dangerous," Dougal said. "On that one I saw the kick being taken, but then I was shielded and couldn't see it. At the last second I saw it deflect off one of our players' heads, so I just tipped it like we do in practice."

Up to the end, Chambersburg had the better chances, but Little Lion keeper Jason Keller was in good form. He stoned Nathan Maynard in the third minute, and made a short-hop deflection on a rebound attempt by Chuy Munoz.

But with 13:04 left in the first half, Griffin Redding took a Trojan corner kick and Ryley Reed's header zipped past Keller into the the net.

At that point, Grove dropped Maynard into the defense, since starter Jacob Stouffer is battling an injury. That moved helped until Maynard had to sit out the final five minutes after receiving a yellow card.

"It was a little tough, with one centerback already out, and then Nate out, too," Grove said. "But JD made a huge save for us."

It's not unusual for State College to finish strong, thanks to its depth.

"We have 12 pretty good players for the front six positions, so we can keep the energy up and have plenty of legs at the end," Little Lions coach Danny Orton said. "We seemed to get better as the game went on.

"We played well and the boys will be disappointed in the result. But there are no easy matches in this conference."