Friends soccer meets its MIAA C Conference championship expectations

by James Peters

Perhaps the best way to describe the 2023 season for the Friends School boys soccer team would be expectations set and expectations met.

Challenged by the coaching staff to capture the MIAA C Conference title from the first day of practice four months ago, the Quakers delivered Sunday at Under Armour Stadium in Baltimore through a 1-0 victory against second-seeded Beth Tfiloh in the title match.

“I told them all year: this is ours to win,” said Friends coach Tyler Wilhelm, whose squad went undefeated in league play this fall and finished with a 10-4-2 mark overall. “From August 15, when we started, this was the goal: make it to the final, prove you should be here, and why you should be here, and they took it. They ran with it.”

Securing that coveted C crown proved to be a difficult task as the Quakers squandered some quality early chances while Beth Tfiloh kept the pressure on the steely Friends defense, anchored by Orien Olgesby, Jordan Saunders, Sebastian Egginton, and Brayden Mathias, until the final whistle.

Neither team, in fact, could find the back of the net until the final minute-plus of the first half, when Mathias, Friends’ hard-charging and creative left back, looked to switch the ball to a pair of teammates making a run to the right post while he carried the ball some 40 yards away from the goal. 

Instead of finding a streaking teammate’s head, Mathias’s lofty strike soared just off the fingertips of Warriors goalkeeper Asher Polakoff and into the back of the net with 1:26 left in the first half to supply the game-winning margin.

“I’ve done that a couple of times this season, so I figured I had the range, so why not rip it,” Mathias said. “It will either go in, hit someone, or bounce off the keeper to one of our players, so I just hit it and prayed. As it flew, I thought it had the height (and) it could make it.”

His goal was one of numerous offensive attacks had by the more dangerous Quakers, who came close to scoring on a couple of occasions in the opening 40 minutes largely through the work of senior wing Idris Mosley, whose timely crosses narrowly missed teammates for scores.

The Warriors (8-2-3) switched the tables as the offensive aggressors in the second half, but a pivotal save by Quakers goalkeeper Alessandro D’Alessio on a breakaway attempt by Yoni Orange about midway through the second half and a near miss by Natan Mashilker with roughly 6 ½ minutes remaining in the match preserved the victory for Friends, who played two a scoreless draw the first time it faced Beth Tfiloh late last month. D’Alessio charged off his line in time to stuff Orange’s attempt at the top of the penalty area.

“Overall, I’m really proud of the boys’ effort,” Warriors coach Matt Smith said. “Overall, I thought they did everything they could. We were unlucky. We hit the crossbar; their goalkeeper made a really good save. I thought we were a little unfortunate not to have a red card (and a subsequent penalty kick) in the first half. Today wasn’t our day.”

With roughly 10 minutes left in the first half, Orange was tripped by what appeared to be the last defender. The official, however, deemed the play a yellow card and gave the Warriors a free kick outside of the penalty area. The ensuing free kick sailed over the goal.