Luiz Silva’s goal with roughly 25 minutes remaining lifted Moon Area to a 1-0 victory over Conrad Weiser Tuesday night in the semifinals of the PIAA Class 3A boys soccer tournament at Bald Eagle High School in Bellefonte.
With the win, the unbeaten Tigers – now 25-0 — will play for a state championship at 10 a.m. Friday against Radnor at Cumberland Valley High School in Mechanicsburg.
It will mark Moon’s first appearance in a PIAA boys soccer title match in 39 years.
Moon coach Tyler Blake described Silva’s game-winning goal as “kind of a cluster.”
“We came down and should have had a foul, put the ball on goal, it bounced back off and out of nowhere Luiz Silva hit it and went in the back of the net,” he said.
“I saw it hit the back of the net, but I didn’t even know it was headed into the goal.”
Blake praised the play of his defense in keeping the clamps on Conrad Weiser, which had lost just once in its first 24 games and had outscored its opposition 20-2 in district and state tournament action.
“Our back four played a heck of a game,” Blake said. “They won almost everything in the air. They were very sound – I don’t know if they misplayed more than a couple balls all night.”
Moon, which earlier won the WPIAL championship, will bring a 25-match winning streak into Friday’s meeting with Radnor, a 3-0 winner over Dallas on Tuesday.
Blake said after Tuesday night’s win that he didn’t know “a single thing” about the Raptors, but he expects a dogfight.
“Normally the teams from District 1 – the Philadelphia suburbs — are always strong,” he said. “They’ve cruised in the playoffs.”
Radnor improved to 20-3 with its win over Dallas, and the Raptors will be making their first trip to the state final since 2021. That year, they lost to a team that later was forced to vacate its crown for using an ineligible player. Radnor’s only state title came in 2004.
Moon, meanwhile, will be playing in a state title game for the first time since 1985, when it lost 4-2 to Council Rock. That Tiger team finished the season 25-2.
Blake said he planned to round up some film on Radnor after returning home Tuesday. After a film session and some training Wednesday, the Tigers will hit the road Thursday afternoon.
As for Friday’s 10 a.m. start, Blake said his team hasn’t played a game that early all season.
“It’s going to be new to us,” he said. “But we’ll stick with our routine. We’ll wake up at a normal time like we would on a school day, get a good breakfast and get some touches on the ball before heading over to the field.”
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