Beckley – Beckley’s 2024 title run went through a pair of opponents it faced in the regular season.
The 2025 defense will do the same.
The defending Class AAA state champions dispatched Morgantown for the second time this season, besting the Mohigans 4-1 Thursday morning at the YMCA Paul Cline Memorial Youth Sports Complex in Beckley.
The semifinal victory sends the Flying Eagles to the newly formed Class AAAA title game where they’ll face Hurricane in a rematch of last year’s title tilt.
A rematch of an August 2-0 victory over the Mohigans, the Flying Eagles jumped out to a faster start this time around. Battling to a scoreless tie in the opening half of their first meeting, Beckley’s Jonathan Scott and Coby Dillon avoided the repeat.
Scott cleaned up on a penalty kick in the first half and Dillon pushed the lead to 2-0.
“I think the experience coming in was being able to manage the emotions of something like this and looking over and seeing our crowd,” Beckley head coach Steve Laraba said. “That last year had a little bit of an effect on us and we expended a lot of energy early. I thought today the boys managed it well. The game plan was to keep the ball moving, to not allow Morgantown to use their athleticism to cause us problems and I thought we did a really good job of that.”
Much like they did in their regular season matchup, the Flying Eagles struck shortly out of the intermission when Dylan Basconi scored in the 41st minute. and Vince Umberger fired the fourth goal of the day for the Flying Eagles in the 46th minute.
Up next is a Hurricane squad the Flying Eagles bested 2-1 on the road in their season opener.
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