AP’S LOGAN BIELAWSKI HAT TRICK POWERS PAST BH-BL
BURNT HILLS, N.Y. >> It’s not how you start, it’s how you finish.
Averill Park boys soccer squad bookended its Suburban Council win Thursday afternoon on the road playing up at Burnt Hills-Ballston Lake with a goal from Thomas Hacker a mere 13 seconds into the contest and saw senior Logan Bielawski finish it with a hat-trick.
“It’s immense and fortunate, it sets the tone for the whole game,” Averill Park Coach John Knight said about Hacker’s almost immediate goal to start Thursday’s tilt. “One of our bigger, better, four-year varsity players’ gets a goal 13 seconds in it sets the tone for the whole game, for him and the team.”
The Spartans battled, knotting the contest 15 minutes into the second half when Ethan VanVorst converted a penalty kick settling the Burnt Hills squad.
Three minutes later, that emotion evaporated when Bielawski converted his own penalty kick to put Averill Park ahead once again, 2-1.
“I think that that second PK was a little soft and it shuts the momentum down and actually switches it more in their favor again, gets in my keeper’s head a little bit,” Burnt Hills coach Adam Cohen said. “He takes them real personal, but it’s part of the game. We’ve got to be able to play with calls and without calls. We need to stay
above that and not let the whistle effect the way we play.”
Bielawski wasn’t done, giving the Warriors a cushion with 18 minutes remaining, coming in from the left sideline and popping the ball up and over Spartan goalie Sean Speck for the two-goal lead, 3-1.
He capped his night with his hat trick goal, the first one for an Averill Park player in Knight’s four years with the program. The Warriors reversed the field against Burnt Hills and once again, Joey Sorriento found him on the left side, moving in and finding the back of the net for the third time.
“He was a second team all-Suburban Council player last year, he was top five in the league in scoring last year,” Knight said. “He’s starting to score goals again for us now and he means a lot to us.
(Joey) Sorriento had the assists and when those two are clicking, we’re pretty tough.”
The three-goal night is one that Bielawski won’t forget.
“In the first place, a hat trick is something that I’ve always dreamed of doing my senior year, it’s just such an accomplishment that I’m proud of,” Logan Bielawski said. “I’m just so happy my team is out here supporting me. We’re striving for every victory and I’m proud of every single one of us, it’s not just me, it’s this team as a whole.”
Breaking down his night, the eventual gamewinner is at the top of his list of lore.
“The big one was the chip over the keeper on the sideline,” Bielawski said. “Although the penalty (kick) put us up, that goal put it away. That’s when we knew that we had it in the bag; we just had to keep going for it.”
The win also goes a long way for Class B Averill Park with the 2018 regular season winding down.
“It means we’re guaranteed a winning record against Class A competition, we’re back to .500 in the Suburban (Council) and we only have one Class A game left,” Knight said. “It puts us in a good situation for a good sectional seed, potentially a two- or a three.”
For the Spartans, there is time to improve and prepare for its chances in the Class A playoffs.
“I’m thinking three weeks from now, I’m thinking about the way we’ve matched up against the other Class A teams,” Cohen said. “We played a heck of a lot better against Shaker and Shaker is a big opponent, we’ve played close matched with a couple of the other A’s which we should have gotten the win, missing empty nets a couple of times makes a big difference
“I’m pretty confident if we see any of the Class A’s that we’ve lost to we can bring it and get a different result the next time. I’m not counting us out yet, but we’ definitely needed to do some work and straighten some stuff out.”