North Hills boys soccer turnaround punctuated by last-second playoff win

By: Josh Rowntree
Saturday, October 26, 2024 | 11:01 AM

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After years of quiet, beaten down bus rides home following matches, the North Hills boys soccer team let loose as it made its way from North Huntington to Ross Township on Oct. 22.

For the first time in a quarter-century, the Indians were able to celebrate a playoff win.

North Hills did so in dramatic fashion, with a goal in the game’s final second to pull a 3-2 upset of No. 5 Norwin in the first round of the WPIAL Class 4A boys soccer playoffs — bouncing the defending champions of the classification.

“It was a wild finish,” said Kyle Boggs, North Hills’ second-year head coach, following the win. “I’ve never seen a game end on a buzzer beater like that. I’m extremely proud of the team, but now we want more.”

For Boggs and North Hills, just getting to that postseason game was something to be proud of. The program had failed to reach the playoffs since 2016 and had gone through a rough stretch that included a 1-50-1 record in section play over the last four seasons.

“The culture was pretty bad,” said Boggs, a Michigan native. “But I don’t know any culture that’s good when you’re not winning games.”

When Boggs took over before the 2023 season, he immediately hired a staff experienced with soccer in the region, including a pair of North Hills alumni in Chris Ebbert and Billy Welsh, as well as Jakob Dunn, a former goalkeeper at Fox Chapel.

“We got together last year and Chris reminded me of what things were like in the past,” said Boggs. “We started working on it. We needed a group of leaders, guys who wanted to turn this program around and do the right things.

“That goes for our culture and what we do on the field. We have a lot of guys who wanted to buy in. They were hungry and there’s a lot of talent here. Our job was, ‘How can we fix this and turn it around for them?’”

Boggs did just that. The Indians went 10-8 in the regular season, including a 4-6 mark in Section 3-4A.

“Last year, we won our nonsection games,” said Boggs. “We knew it was there. We were beating some teams and competing with some teams, but just weren’t getting that final edge. We just needed guys who work hard, and we’ve gotten that.”

Offensively, Boggs can’t easily identify the team’s most important player, because it’s operated as such a strong collective. But he does know where the wellspring of scoring resides.

“Our center midfield,” he said. “Othmane Elijoufri and Jack Scarsella, they’re our holding midfielders, but they generate a lot. They help us switch the field. They help us get after guys. They control the play and possession for us.

“Tyler Devlin, he gets at guys. He takes guys on and is really crafty with the ball. He finds good windows to slip guys in with our outside wingers and guys up top, like Zach Fritz, who is extremely fast, and Vinny Dos Santos, who is just a dog.”

Troy Scarsella and Tyler Myers have also been key contributors in the midfield.

“It’s a whole group effort with the way we attack,” said Boggs. “We don’t attack with just one or two guys, and we don’t try to play counter. We just attack with everybody and get numbers up.”

That mentality helped North Hills get off to a strong 3-1 start to begin the year, as the Indians scored 24 goals in the three-game winning streak in late August.

Following a pair of losses to strong programs in Hampton and North Allegheny, the Indians rattled off six wins in their next seven games. But a three-game losing streak heading into the playoffs put some doubt in the potential of another win in 2024.

“We really had to pull it together,” said Boggs, who continuously emphasized the positives from those three losses with his team. “We were seeing some of the right things but needed to make some adjustments. We needed some intensity and needed to play a full 80 minutes. It was probably the toughest week of sessions that they’ve had.”

The hard work paid off, with the program winning its first postseason game in 25 years, when it also beat Norwin back in the late ‘90s.

And now, with a playoff win to its credit, the turnaround is official at North Hills.

“They’re budding confidence in themselves and each other,” said Boggs. “We say it a lot, ‘Trust your teammates. Trust the way you play. Trust in your abilities as a team.’

“It’s hard to have that, especially when you’re losing. But now we know we can win, that we can compete with teams. When we get on the field, we don’t play scared like we used to.”

Tags: North Hills