With nearly 30 minutes of scoreless action in the books between Montoursville and Wellsboro, it looked to be anyone’s game with both teams having had great chances to score in the early going. It was evident that the first goal would go a long way into determining the winner.

For that first goal, Montoursville looked to an unlikely source. Reserve Cody Marino found space behind the Hornet defense and expertly shot the ball around Wellsboro keeper Camden Tom to put Montoursville ahead en route to a 3-1 win in the District 4 Class AA boys soccer quarterfinals at Milton on Saturday.

“I received a beautiful pass from Bryce (Winslow), and I just got past him, took a shot bottom right and it went in,” Marino said. “It felt great. That’s what we needed to change our mindset.”

Marino entered Saturday’s contest with just one goal on the season. He picked a wonderful time for his second.

“He’s been working hard for us. He’s very active. He’s always super urgent. He takes advantage of whatever minutes he gets game to game, and he does get a fairly regular amount of minutes,” Montoursville coach Bryan Pauling said. “He’s just very urgent up top and he doesn’t have any fear about going through the middle and trying to get a ball in the net. Today, he finally locked one in and put it in. It was super exciting for everybody.”

In a game that up, until Montoursville scored two goals in a 20-second span with around 20 minutes left, truly felt like it could go either way, that first goal allowed Montoursville to settle in a bit after a nervy start defensively for both teams. Wellsboro’s Jonathan Carl had caused issues for the Warriors down the right side up to that point. But Montoursville was able to play a bit more passively once they opened the scoring.

“We always had a plan to make sure we were marking (Carl) closely. We knew he was the key for them. (David Seeling) is very strong too, and they work well together,” Pauling said. “Our goal on the wing was to always know where he was. As we got late into the game, we decided to shift to four defenders, which gave us a little more stability. At that point, we weren’t as worried about getting another goal.”

Montoursville would take control of the match for good halfway through the second half. With 20:40 remaining in the game, Quinn Winslow fired a shot that Tom stopped, but didn’t control. The rebound spilled right to Bryce Winslow, and he calmly found the back of the net for a 2-0 lead.

“I got the ball about half-field, and I turned and I played my brother a little through ball, and he took a nice shot on frame. I knew I had to follow it and buried it,” Winslow said.

Just 17 seconds later, freshman Liam Lucas capitalized on a Hornet turnover and scored after dribbling around a Wellsboro center back.

“They played it through. I was able to run onto it and get past my guy, touch it to the right, and just buried it,” Lucas said.

Wellsboro was able to get on the board two minutes later via a Michael Seeling goal assisted by Liam Stevens. And they nearly made it 3-2 at the 10-minute mark when David Seeling hit the crossbar. But Montoursville was able to run out the remaining 10 minutes for their first trip to the district semifinals in the 21st century.

Next, the Warriors will get perennial state power Lewisburg, 5-0 winners over Warrior Run.

“We’ll go back and take a look at what we can do to stay in the game with them. They’re very strong and very well coached. They’re a team we didn’t see in the regular season, so it’s an opportunity for us to see how we match up,” Pauling said. “We played them a couple of years ago in the district tournament, and they took us out early. We’ll see what we can come up with over the next couple of days to be ready for them.”

Montoursville 3, Wellsboro 1

M–Cody Marino (Bryce Winslow), 12:15. M–Bryce Winslow, 20:40. M–Liam Lucas, 20:23.

Shots: M 11, W 8. Saves: M 5 (Mason Fry), W 7 (Camden Tom).