Benslimane does it all in East’s OT win

WEST CHESTER >> Playoffs are a time to dig deep and find out what teams are truly made of. The West Chester East Vikings can be labeled as fighters who showed tremendous poise in a 3-2 overtime win over Boyertown Tuesday night in the opening round of the District 1 Class 4A playoffs at Harold I. Zimmerman field.

West Chester East will travel to No. 2 Spring-Ford Thursday night.

Had it not been for the two-goal effort from West Chester East forward Driss Benslimane, the Vikings would be hanging up their cleats for the season. In the overtime, Benslimane put away the game-winning goal after a beautiful fast-paced shot tucked in between the right goal post and the outstretched arms of Boyertown goalkeeper Mason Kurtz.

“I knew once the ball came to my side of the field that I could get good positioning past the attacking

third,’ said Benslimane. “Once I took my first touch I knew that I was going to put it away.”

“Driss is a great finisher and I knew that once the ball fell to him and he turned, I felt that his shot was going to go in and he was going to win it for us,” said West Chester East midfielder Cormac Dooley.

“I told them that we had to play combination and if we could do that then we will get the game winner,” said West Chester East coach Charlie Dodds. “We had that when Driss layed it to Chris Ryan and Chris played it back to him, and Driss being a handful in the box, was able to tuck it away rather than crushing it.”

However, the heroic efforts of

Benslimane would not have been possible had it not been for the player who collected the game winning assist as well: Chris Ryan.

With just over a minute remaining in regulation, the Vikings trailed Boyertown by a goal and were pushing for a goal to draw even. Following a contested shot by Benslimane, the ball would pinball off of a few Boyertown defenders before falling to Ryan’s foot on the far post, where he would knock it through.

It did not take long for scoring to occur in the first half, as Benslimane collected a rebound off of a corner kick and found the back of the net just four minutes after the opening kick.

The Bears would prove worthy road warriors in the game as they evened the score following a masterful strike from just outside the penalty box by Dimitrije Randhelovic with just four minutes remaining in the first half.

Heading into the second half, Boyertown would use the speed on the outside with Beckett Wenger and continued to attack the Vikings’ perimeter defense.

“We knew they were going to be able to possess in the midfield and that their front-runners were going to attack our back line,” said Boyertown head coach Mark Chambers. “Our decision was to attack their outside backs, get width, get baseline,

and if we do get baseline, get some balls on the keepers.”

The Bears would capitalize on the space that was given to Beckett, as he would control a throwin attempt, which he then dribbled into open space toward the center of the field and delivered a firecracker from 20 yards outside the box into the back of the Vikings’ net with just over 15 minutes remaining.