There was more to Liberty’s 2-1 boys soccer win over Whitehall on Sept. 25 than met the eye, but what became clear as the Hurricanes swarmed Coach Jason Horvath at game’s end was that the ‘Canes had just assured themselves of a berth in district playoffs.

“For the first time, our seniors are gonna know what the post season looks like,” Coach Horvath said. “I think a lot of it is what the guys are made of. You win the first game, you lose the second, tie the third, lose the fourth, and you wonder where you’re going from there.”

Then, the breakthrough came, and the Hurricanes wondered no more.

“I think a big moment for them was putting to bed some demons from last year in the fifth game,” said Horvath. “We were up 2-0 on Central Catholic last year, and we lost, 3-2, so to finish them off and win that game gave us a lot of momentum to move forward, and the scheduling helps as well. We played a front-heavy schedule with Emmaus and Northampton early on, and then we played teams that were middle-of-the-road. We lost a lot of those games last year, so this year, we’ve won all of them so far. That said, we move onto the next one, which is Wednesday against Nazareth, another good team, so we’ll have to get ready for that.”

Under a steady mist at Whitehall, the Hurricanes took control of the match from the start with Dylan Lewis’s goal in the 11th minute.

“We got a throw-in deep in their end, and Josh (Lee) threw it in to me,” Lewis said. “I had a player on my back. I saw Liam (Hosfeld) coming in from the corner. I tried to play it to him. He missed it. Definitely hit a volley. The keeper got his body behind it, but it spilled out of his hands and went toward his feet, and I was just there. Being able to do it in a big game...I never made playoffs in my high school career...it’s so nice.”

Lewis explained the depth of significance post season play has to the Hurricanes.

“Last year, a game like this, we would lose by one goal. We lost to Whitehall last year in overtime, 2-1, and it’s heartbreaking,” he said. “Last year, coming up short, it was a disappointment for sure, when we knew we had the quality.”

Lewis struck again in the 34th minute of the first half on an assist by Deklan McCane.

“We work at practice all the time on making runs as forwards and try to open up that space to get ourselves in good positions,” said Lewis. “Deklan played a ball in to me. I got a little lucky with that shot, but on a (slick) surface like this, the keepers are gonna have a difficult time, and I was able to sneak in. To me, it looked like he thought I was gonna go high, but I went low, so it looked like he jumped to try and readjust, but he just didn’t do it in time.”

Despite a 2-0 halftime lead, the Hurricanes knew the match was far from over.

“We were saying don’t let their dangerous players get any good time on the ball and make sure we lock them down,” Lewis said.

It was game on for the Zephyrs, however, when the ball bounced in the box before Benjiman Campbell found the back of the net off an assist by Reed Felker in the 57th minute.

“They’re physical, they’re fast, they have a couple of really skilled players, and they’re resilient,” said Horvath of the Zephyrs. “They don’t give up. You can hear their coach. I don’t think their coach is a guy who ever gave up on anything, so they’re modeled after him, and they play hard, so it was certainly not an easy game coming into, but the boys came through in the end.”

Two shots by Liberty forward Josh Lee came close, but Whitehall goalie Cole Richards made a diving save on Lee’s second attempt in the 60th minute.

Richards made 5 saves on the night, and Liberty keeper Thomas Horvath also made 5 saves.

“Now, we have all these big games coming up like Nazareth and Freedom, and those are games we have to win as well,” said Lewis. “Nazareth is one we want to be able to say we did win. And Freedom is our crosstown rival. Nobody wants to lose to them.”