The Connellsville boys soccer team had a fine season. The Falcons racked up their second consecutive 10-win campaign and reached the WPIAL Class AAA playoffs for the second year in a row.

However, Connellsville's first playoff victory will have to wait at least one more year.

On Monday, Connellsville's season came to a close as the Falcons dropped a 3-0 decision to second-seeded Fox Chapel at Fox Chapel Stadium.

“It was a good year,” Connellsville coach Jason Rice said. “We had a lot of contributions from a lot of players. They just wanted to win, and they worked hard all season.”

As for the playoff match, it couldn't have started any worse for the Falcons as Fox Chapel came out with immediate pressure in the box. That pressure resulted in Carson Cohen finding a loose ball and sliding a shot past Connellsville keeper Alex Shultz with just 38 seconds elapsed.

“They came out strong,” Rice said. “To go down 1-0 early (was difficult), but we continued to play.”

After the early goal, the Falcons (10-7) seemed to stabilize and got a couple of quality scoring chances on the Foxes (15-1-1). Griffin Prinkey banged a low liner on goal, but the shot was stopped by Jacob Dunn. Later in the half, Jacob Rice broke in alone but was overtaken.

However, Rice managed to slide a shot toward the goal. The ball eluded Dunn but was cleared away by the Fox Chapel defense just a few feet from the goal line.

Then, with 6:13 remaining in the half, Cohen struck again as he converted an Alex Marotte pass to make it 2-0.

A scary moment occurred with 4:46 left in the first half as Connellsville sophomore Nathanael Bungard went down hard following a collision in front of Connellsville's net. Bungard was down for approximately 25 minutes before being taken off the field on a stretcher.

Bungard waved to the crowd as he was being wheeled off.

“He was alert and talking, so he should be fine,” coach Rice said.

When play resumed, Marotte added to his point total as he picked up a loose ball in the slot and jammed in a goal to make it 3-0 with 3:16 left in the half.

“It's always big to set the tone of the game early and that was our plan,” Fox Chapel coach Erik Ingram said. “We wanted to press the tempo early.”

The second half went by without any scoring. Shultz made a couple of key saves for the Falcons, finishing with six stops. However, Connellsville couldn't muster any type of attack in the final 40 minutes against Fox Chapel, which will play Franklin Regional on Thursday in the WPIAL quarterfinals.

“We just didn't get behind them enough,” coach Rice said. “We just couldn't get in the right areas. In the second half, they did what they needed to do to get the win.”

Jason Black is the local sports editor of the Daily Courier. Reach him at jblack@tribweb.com.

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