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PATTON -- Cambria Heights girls soccer coach Greg Galanis is not about to dust off a spot in the trophy case. Not now anyhow.
The top-seeded High-landers nursed a one-goal lead until the final three minutes and secured a 2-0 victory against Westmont Hilltop in a District 6 Class 2A playoff quarterfinal match on Tuesday night at AmeriServ Field.
"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," Galanis said.
Emma Gilbey posted the shutout for the Highlanders.
Heights plays Tyrone in a semifinal match Monday at a site and time to be determined.
"We're going to take them one by one, game by game, and see if we can get through it," Lily 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," Carrie North-Smyers said.
"I think it's very open. You look at Forest Hills, Richland, Central of Martinsburg. All of them are good teams. And soccer is a funny game. On any given day, it's probably truer in soccer than in other sports," Westmont Hilltop coach Bill Caldwell said.
North-Smyers scored the game's first goal five 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.
Westmont Hilltop, which had lost its previous four games by shutout, hung with the Highlanders for the next 30-plus minutes.
"They started to pressure us offensively. And I thought we adjusted and got us back on the offensive swing and started to pressure them before we hit that second goal," Galanis said.
Karlheim scored an insurance goal with less than three minutes remaining. Or one might prefer to call it a relief goal.
"You're only one mistake away from a tie. That second goal pretty much sealed the deal," Galanis said.
Ella Lamb assisted on both goals.
"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.
SCORE BY HALVES
Westmont Hilltop 0 0 - 0
Cambria Heights 1 1 - 2
First half: CH -North-Smyers (Lamb), 5:02.
Second half: CH - L.Karlheim (Lamb), 37:16.
Records: Westmont Hilltop (7-12); Cambria Heights (13-4).