Cambria Heights girls blank Westmont Hilltop in District 6-2A quarterfinals

PATTON – The same woes that proved to be a thorn in Westmont Hilltop’s side bore themselves out in the Hilltoppers’ 2-0 loss against Cambria Heights in a District 6 Class 2A girls’ soccer playoff match Tuesday night at AmeriServ Field.

The top-seeded Highlanders will face Tyrone, a 1-0 overtime winner over Central, in a semifinal-round match next week at a date, site and time to be determined.

“We’ve struggled to score all year,” said Westmont Hilltop coach Bill Caldwell.

The Hilltoppers lost their past five games by shutout. They were outscored 15-0 after they posted a 1-0 shutout of Richland Oct. 8 that evened their record to 7-7.

Carrie North-Smyers scored the match’s first goal six minutes into the match.

“It was a real confidence boost for me (because) I had been struggling with confidence recently. This really helped me and brought me back up,” she said.

The Highlanders blanked Westmont Hilltop 1-0 in a previous meeting Sept. 19.

Westmont Hilltop, which had lost its previous four games by shutout, hung with the Highlanders for the next 30-plus minutes.

“We knew they were good. We knew we had to come out stronger, though,” said Lilly Karlheim, whose second-half goal with three minutes left clinched the victory.

Emma Gilbey logged the shutout for Cambria Heights.

“I really don’t like 1-0 scores because if somebody from the other team gets a goal, we’re tied up,” North-Smyers said.

“We’re really good on defense. Both of their goals came on set pieces, which is unfortunate. But when you have set pieces like that, there are always goal-scoring opportunities. They took advantage of those and we couldn’t,” Caldwell said.

Ella Lamb assisted on both goals.

Cambria Heights might be the No. 1 seed in the 2A tournament, but Highlanders coach Greg Galinis isn’t taking that position for granted.

“There are a lot of talented teams. I think you must take it one opponent at a time. This has been an up-and-down season for a lot of teams. You’re on fire one day, and the next day not so much. So, I wouldn’t say that we’re the team to beat,” he said.

“I think it’s very open. You look at Forest Hills, Richland, Central. All of them are good teams. And soccer’s a funny game. On any given day, it’s truer in soccer than in other sports,” Caldwell said.

“We’re going to take them one by one, game by game, and see if we can get through it,” Karlheim said.

“Our team has a motto: It doesn’t matter what place we’re in. We’re going to play hard no matter what, if we’re first or if we’re last,” North-Smyers said.

Westmont Hilltop will lose nine seniors to graduation.

“We’ll lose a lot of leadership, but we have a good young nucleus, and we have some eighth graders that are coming up, so we should be OK next year,” Caldwell said.