All it took was one.
And that lone finish by Matt Crawford with 10:59 gone in overtime proved to be the difference as Holy Ghost Prep claimed a 1-0 victory over West Allegheny in the PIAA Class AA boys' soccer championship game Saturday afternoon at sunny Hersheypark Stadium.
Matt Lingerman added three saves for Ken Lawson's Firebirds (20-4-0), who won for the ninth straight outing and for the 20th time in 21 games since opening the season 0-3. Holy Ghost also claimed its first state Class AA crown since defeating Quaker Valley 1-0 in the 1992 final at Shippensburg University.
Spencer Wolfe finished with two stops for West Allegheny (21-1-3), which was appearing in its first championship game.
Scoreless through regulation — and with both teams struggling to generate scoring opportunities — Holy Ghost's game-winning sequence began when Tim French flighted a ball in that Crawford and Wolfe went after just outside the six.
With Wolfe taking the brunt of the mid-air collision and slow to get back to his feet, the ball cycled to the Firebirds' left wing. Pierce Skelly promptly uncorked a low ball toward the cage that Crawford was able to tuck into an open net for the trophy-winning score.
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