Expand<\/a><\/p>\nHAMBURG \u2014 Billy Johnson had just 36 saves on the season heading into Tuesday night\u2019s game.<\/p>\n
The smaller number of saves had nothing to do with him. The Abington Heights defense just rarely allowed any ball to even reach him, racking up several zero-shot games and 16 clean sheets. Comets opponents only scored nine times this season in 23 games.<\/p>\n
However, he stayed ready, and when his team needed him most facing one of the best teams in the state, the junior goalkeeper delivered.<\/p>\n
Johnson compiled 10 saves to secure the Comets\u2019 17th shutout, Nico Bustos and Joey Pivirotto each scored a goal and Abington Heights defeated District 1 champion Harriton, 2-0, at Hamburg Area High School to advance to the PIAA Class 3A boys soccer final.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been waiting for this one all year,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cI haven\u2019t been tested much. I was waiting for my time. Our defense wasn\u2019t too great, but their offense is easily the best team we\u2019ve faced and I knew I just had to come out there and make it count.\u201d<\/p>\n
The District 2 champions (23-1) advance to Saturday\u2019s final where they will face District 3 champion Conrad Weiser, a 3-1 winner over District 8 champion Allderdice, at 10 a.m. at Northeastern High School in Manchester.<\/p>\n
The semifinal was the opposite of Saturday\u2019s quarterfinal against District 11 champion Blue Mountain, when the Comets outshot the Eagles, 24-7. On Tuesday, Harriton outshot Abington Heights, 17-5, and Johnson got to work early against the Rams\u2019 pressure, making a save at the 30-minute mark.<\/p>\n
Abington Heights struggled to counter the Harriton attack, so it turned to its star midfielder Nico Bustos.<\/p>\n
Enzo Capozzi blasted a ball into the box from the 40-yard line that a Harriton defender cleared with a header. However, Wes Illian tracked down the ball and fed a through ball to Bustos in stride. Bustos cut back right and ripped the ball into a small window in the right side of the net for a 1-0 lead with 14:37 left in the first half.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve been working on those throughout practice the whole season,\u201d Bustos said. \u201cWe\u2019ve been talking about none of these ABC goals are going to work in a state game, so we\u2019ve been working on plays, 1-2s and I made the run through, lost my runner, had Wes find me and cut somebody and from there I can\u2019t miss.\u201d<\/p>\n
Johnson did the rest.<\/p>\n
The junior keeper snatched the ball out of the air when William Short tried to sneak it past him on his right side with 3:13 left in the first half. A few minutes later, Noah Duffy tried to blast a shot over Johnson\u2019s head, but he leaped to save it. With seven seconds left in the half, Beckett Safier ripped a shot from the 10-yard line, but Johnson slid to his right to keep a 1-0 lead at halftime.<\/p>\n
\u201cBilly was lights out,\u201d Abington Heights coach Frank Dyska said. \u201cHe makes some really difficult saves look just routine. It never really ceases to amaze me. He\u2019s been the last couple weeks just absolutely locked in in practice and you\u2019re getting to see it now kind of out on the field, the talent that we have with Billy there and the player that he is.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Harriton (21-2-1) attack only ramped up in the second half, but Johnson turned back every opportunity.<\/p>\n
Johnson made a leaping save, and another stop to start the half. Then, James Mitchell made a slide tackle to break up a Harriton run up the right side, and Johnson corralled a redirected header with 20:00 left in the half.<\/p>\n
Seven minutes later, the Rams created a great opportunity as a Harriton player poked a throw-in in front of the net to hit a charging Bennett Avila. The Harriton sophomore got a foot on it, but Johnson was right in front of him to make the save.<\/p>\n
One minute later, Duffy fired from the 12-yard line, but Johnson collected the shot like a catcher trying to corral a ball in the dirt.<\/p>\n
Then, Chetan Rowe got a good kick on a ball bouncing around in the box that Johnson leaped to stop and collected the ricochet before a charging Avila got to it. Finally, with 2:49 left in the half, Avila sent a nice cross to Matias Hernandez who got a foot on it, but Johnson was in perfect position for yet another save.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey were a very respectable, very strong team, very technical, they had a ton of chances, but our back line, our (center defensive midfielders), everybody, especially Billy, our defensive efforts were unmatched and we were able to keep another clean sheet to add to the tally of the season,\u201d Bustos said.<\/p>\n
Joey Pivirotto put the game away, when he beat the goalkeeper to the ball, poked it past him and had a wide-open net to put the game away and set off a celebration in the stands with 1:05 left.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought it was amazing,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cWe stayed composed the whole game. Even though our offense wasn\u2019t clicking well, we kept it pushing. We got two good looks and we capitalized on those two good looks. We haven\u2019t had a good conversion rate most of the season, but we kept it close, we finished when we needed to and we got a good win.\u201d<\/p>\n
Abington Heights outscored its opponents, 29-0, in six postseason games, and 132-9 this season and secured its 17th shutout Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Last week, the Comets hadn\u2019t won a state playoff game since 2004. Now they have three wins in eight days and a title shot Saturday.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s history for the school. It\u2019s amazing,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cWe really want to win. We\u2019re going to stay focused, we\u2019re going to work on everything we did wrong. We\u2019ll celebrate tonight, but tomorrow it\u2019s just another day of focus and preparation for Saturday.\u201d<\/p>\n
First: AH \u2013 Bustos (Illian), 25:23. Second: AH \u2013 Pivirotto, 78:55; Shots-corners: AH 5-0, HAR 17-7;\u00a0Saves: AH (Johnson) 10, HAR (Smith) 1; Records: AH 23-1, HAR 21-2-1.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Abington Heights\u2019 Joey Pivirotto squeezes past Harriton\u2019s Connor Stien and William Short during the Class 3A boys soccer…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":32081,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[305,178,180,179,726],"class_list":{"0":"post-32080","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-scranton","8":"tag-high-school-sports","9":"tag-scranton","10":"tag-scranton-headlines","11":"tag-scranton-news","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32080","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32080"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32080\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32081"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32080"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32080"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32080"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Abington](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/STT-L-AH-1111-06.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Abington](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/STT-L-AH-1111-05.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Abington](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/STT-L-AH-1111-04.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Abington](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/STT-L-AH-1111-08.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/STT-L-AH-1111-03.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Abington](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/STT-L-AH-1111-02.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Harrition\u2019s](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/STT-L-AH-1111-01.jpg\")
<\/p>\n