The 2023 Palisades boys soccer season did not go the way Trevor Johnson thought it would.
But the senior captain was pleasantly surprised.
“Honesty, at the beginning of the year, I projected we’d get two wins,” he said. “We got to the district final. That’s a pretty good year.”
The Pirates did quite a bit better than that. Their season ended with a 4-1 loss to defending PIAA champion Moravian Academy in the District 11 Class A championship game on Wednesday night at Emmaus.
It was a rematch of last year’s District 11 title game, which Moravian won, 2-0, but this year’s Palisades team was very different from the one that took the field in 2022. The Pirates graduated 13 seniors from that squad and had just two on this year’s team. Six of their starters were sophomores and one freshman, Riley Andrew, was in the starting lineup.
“Most of our team is really young and no one expected us to get here, we didn’t expect to be here,” said Johnson, who also competes in the triple jump for the Palisades track team. “We played really well, especially in the first half.
“They had a lot of chances in the first half, and we were able to hold them. We were playing good soccer. They were definitely better than us in the first half, but we had the lead at halftime.
“I’m very proud of our team. We didn’t have a lot of kids with experience at the varsity level and we got this far. This was definitely a fun season.”
The third-seeded Pirates showed their mettle by scoring first. Junior Ben Flinchbaugh hit the top corner of the net with just 29 seconds remaining in the first half on Palisades’ first shot on goal. That sent the Pirates into halftime with a 1-0 lead.
“That was one of the bigger goals I’ve scored,” Flinchbaugh said. “I don’t celebrate goals. I scored in our last game and I didn’t celebrate and the team was on me so since this was an important goal, I celebrated it.”
That late first-half goal apparently lit a fire under the top-seeded Lions, who are unused to coming from behind. They came out in the second half and meant business, netting all four of their goals in that frame.
Palisades goaltender Mason Bauer, a sophomore, made two saves for the evening.
The Pirates had just three wins at one point in the season before winning four of their last six games.
“Last year we had so many seniors,” Flinchbaugh said. “This year we’re very young. It was such a big change, and it was hard to adapt to. It took us some time to get it going but we played much better at the end of the season and I’m proud of that.
“We have a lot of players coming back and we’re getting a bunch of eighth graders coming up so I feel good about next year’s team. I think it’s going to be a lot different next year.
“It was a good experience for us, especially for the younger players, to get this far, especially after the slow start we had. Next year we’ll come back stronger.”
It is the 11th consecutive District 11 title for Moravian Academy, with the last 10 coming at the Class A level. The Lions played without their leading scorer, junior Hasan Strandzhev, who transferred from Pen Argyl and is ineligible for postseason play this year.
Palisades closes out the year with a 7-10-2 record. Moravian Academy (15-6) advances to the PIAA tournament, taking on the District Four champion (Benton or East Juniata) on Tuesday.
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