Most of the Wolverines’ brought their “A” game, but Carson Swanson was on another level. Swanson scored four goals as Westfield/Brocton held off Frewsburg 4-3 in a Section VI Class C boys soccer quarterfinal at Sgt. Kevin W. White Memorial Field.

“When we got opportunities I was trying to capitalize on them, because we don’t get many,” Westfield/Brocton’s Carson Swanson said about his goals. “When we are getting chances, we have to make the most of it.”

With knowledge of its field, Westfield/Brocton used the homefield advantage and elected to play into the wind during the first half, knowing it would receive the benefit in the important moments of the game. The gamble of giving Frewsburg the wind advantage first paid off as the game was level at 1-1 by halftime.

“Being that this is our home field we know what we want to do,” Westfield/Brocton head coach Neil Huber said. “We know how the wind works here. We purposefully picked to go into the wind first, because we knew in the second half it would be strong for us.”

Westfield/Brocton’s Isaac Stoughton advances the ball upfield. OBSERVER Photo by Ashleigh Brown

For almost all of the first half, Frewsburg controlled the game and it looked like the wind strategy could come back to bite Westfield/Brocton.

In the early offensive flurry, Frewsburg rattled off several shots on net and in the eighth minute Connor Murray cleaned up a rebound from a Brayden Lobb shot to go up 1-0.

It looked like much more was coming from Frewsburg, but the Wolverines buckled down defensively to keep the Bears’ shots from finding the net. Then, on Westfield/Brocton’s only good chance of the half, Isaac Stoughton assisted Swanson on the counterattack to level the score at 1-1.

At halftime the wind advantage switched in favor of Westfield/Brocton, but that didn’t seem to faze Frewsburg. In the opening minute of the half, Zack Carr dribbled into the Wolverines’ box and let off a rocket shot that was stopped initially, but the rebound was too much to handle and Murray cleaned it up for his second of the game.

Just like the first lead, the second Frewsburg lead did not last very long as Westfield/Brocton began to benefit from the wind blowing toward the Frewsburg goal. A prime opportunity came in the 47th minute as Swanson burned by the Frewsburg defense, but was hauled down from behind and to the dismay of the Westfield/Brocton bench. A penalty shot opportunity was missed, but that didn’t stop Swanson as he beat the Frewsburg defense on the next rush and capped it off with a goal to tie things up at 2-2.

Westfield/Brocton’s Danny Bratton protects the ball from Frewsburg’s Gavin Smith during Thursday’s Section VI Class C quarterfinal. OBSERVER Photo by Ashleigh Brown

Then, from there, the chances kept coming and in the 57th minute, Westfield/Brocton finally got another penalty shot. Swanson made sure to not miss his mark for the 3-2 lead. At that point it looked like the wheels were falling off for Frewsburg and then things got worse when Swanson scored his fourth goal on a second Tristen Phillips assist.

Now with an insurance goal, Westfield/Brocton hunkered down defensively to make it as difficult as possible for Frewsburg to score. The Bears created many chances, but just couldn’t hit the mark and if they did, Aaron Fuller was there in net to turn it aside.

“My teams in the past have always played great team defense,” Huber added. “I credit Simeon Lashbrook, Donovan St. George, Isaac Stoughton, Micah Heim, Tristen Phillips and Aiden Gatto. They’ve learned the concept of working together, which is one of the key components and you can’t say enough about Aaron (Fuller) our goalie.”

However, with 2:45 left in the game, Frewsburg won a penalty after a hand ball in the box and sent Carr to take the shot. The Frewsburg senior capped off what would be his final career game with a hard shot into the bottom of the net that cut the Westfield/Brocton lead to 4-3.

“My kids played their hearts out,” Frewsburg head coach Spyros Kolivas stated. “I feel sorry for my six seniors who were looking to go to Buffalo, but luck didn’t have them. This is my last year with the boys and it hurts.”

Frewsburg kept pushing until the very end, even sending one last cross into the box in the final 15 seconds, but it found the foot of a Westfield/Brocton defender and was cleared to send the Wolverines to the semifinals.

“We had a couple of games against these guys and they beat us both times,” Huber said about Frewsburg. “We knew it was going to be a tough coming in. At the end of the day it’s win or go home and my boys came to play. We had a couple of moments where it was shady, but we were able to prevail.”

Westfield/Brocton will now take on No. 1 Holland/Franklinville/West Valley (10-6-1) next Wednesday at West Seneca East.