NETHER PROVIDENCE — It would be news to anyone who watches Kenji Melby-Griffin play center back that his career there is measured in mere weeks.
The Strath Haven junior was part of a mid-season formation shift. The Panthers opened the season with a 4-3-3 record, unable to get out of second gear and with tougher games on the horizon. In search of solidity, Melby-Griffin and winger Halen O’Neill dropped to the backline to shore up a rickety defense.
The result was seven straight shutouts to end the regular season. An eighth Wednesday night means that if they can produce a ninth early next week, Haven can reach the state tournament.
Kingston Birch’s 5th-minute goal stood up thanks to Melby-Griffin, O’Neill and the Haven defense, the fourth seed claiming a 1-0 win over Lower Moreland in the opening round of the PIAA Class 3A tournament at George L. King Field.
Haven (9-3-6) advances to Monday’s semifinal against top-seeded West Chester Rustin, a 1-0 winner over Kennett Wednesday. The winner gets one of the district’s two states berths. Rustin hammered Haven, 5-2, in early September.
But that was a much different Panthers team. It wasn’t the outfit that hasn’t allowed a goal since a 2-1 loss to Garnet Valley on Sept. 24, nor the team that has managed 0-0 draws this season with traditional powers Radnor, Lower Merion and Conestoga.
“I think we started off rough,” Melby-Griffin said. “We just had to work it out. This is my first time playing center back. Just a young back line to start, and then we moved a couple pieces back there, and we just have been glue since then. We talk off the field, talk on the field. It’s constant communication. It’s always directing each other, and it’s just clamps.”
The elements are clear. O’Neill has quickly become a fearsome 1-v-1 defender who, against the Lions’ bunch of on-ball technicians, won tackle after tackle when shown the barest sliver of the ball. Elis Warley is a great front-foot defender in the middle. And the imposing Melby-Griffin is a long-ball merchant, with his aerial presence to clear the lines and his big boot to launch attacks with it.
He did both Wednesday. His ball forward from the back in the 5th minute sprung freshman forward Jacob Knaub past the defense. Lower Moreland goalie Evan Stine steamrolled him just outside the box, the yellow card he was shown a more fortuitous outcome than the red or penalty kick it could’ve been.
Still, the senior had to leave the pitch for five minutes, which brought on backup Xudong Hu.
John O’Rourke took the free kick from 19 yards out, avoiding the wall and smartly electing to test Hu, who beat away a bending effort. But Birch was alert to the spill and first to it, roofing a shot for the 1-0 lead.
“When we saw him (Hu) go in, we knew we had to crash because usually the backup keepers aren’t great with catching the ball,” Birch said. “So as soon as I saw him go in, I knew I had to make that run. The ball went in, came out of his hands, and I just knew that was my goal to put in.”
That was all Haven’s defense needed, though the Panthers produced the best chances of the opening half. A combination between Brendan Godo and O’Rourke sent the latter in on goal. Stine slid out to smother a low shot with his trailing leg, slowing it enough for Lower Moreland center back Mateus Machado to clear it about a yard short of the goal line in the 20th.
O’Rourke played in Jude Korb down the left channel in the 30th minute. Korb opened his hips and ticketed a shot for the far post until Stine somehow contorted to kick out and redirect it wide. Stine charged out a minute later when a misplayed header back-spun to Knaub, but the forward side-footed an attempt wide of frame.
Lower Moreland was on the front foot in the second half, and they forced six total staves from Haven goalie John Stephanson. But the moments when Haven’s shutout was in true danger were few and far between.
Stephanson made two saves in the first half, the most dangerous a dipping drive from midfielder Connor Huber from 25 yards out that he gripped with ease. Stephanson got behind long shots on two occasions in the second half. His nerviest moment came in the 56th when he had to dive to deny an effort by Eyad Idress, but he still got two hands securely around it.
Stephanson was alert off his line in the 67th to punch a dangerous free kick, then got enough of a glove to reroute a cross by Lian Fellah in the 73rd.
The Lower Moreland front three of Fellah, Jordy Barrerra and Jackson Jordan provided plenty of flash in the middle third, but Haven always had an answer once the ball reached the final third. An 80-yard run by Barrerra in the 69th minute that ended with a shot well high that never troubled Stephanson was disappointingly emblematic.
“Their top three vary their runs a lot – their striker would run to the corner, their winger would run centrally,” Melby-Griffin said. “We were constantly communicating, again. That’s our strength, I think. We passed them off. We won our big tackles when we needed to, cleared the ball well.”
Haven’s defense was alert early, blocking four shots in the first 10 minutes. They came up with the occasional big tackle. What the defense didn’t handle, the midfield triangle of Birch, O’Rourke and Lucas Molloy took care of, with Birch as the backline shield.
“It’s just our mentality,” Birch said. “We’re really hard to beat, and I think you can ask a lot of people about that. We never want to give up, and we stay strong the whole game, and it’s really hard to beat us.”
The changes are so comprehensive and the new structure so seamless that the changes already seem distant.
“It’s a mentality,” Melby-Griffin said. “We talked about it all year long. Coach Ryan (O’Neill) hammers that fact that like we’ve got to be strong in the head and the heart, and that’s how you win games. And I think we did that very well today.”