Athens battled the visiting Troy Trojans to a scoreless tie at the end of the first half on Thursday evening. The Wildcats came out swinging in the second half with three goals and held on for a 3-0 Northern Tier League victory in front of a packed house at Alumni Stadium.
“They kept flying at us and caught us on our heels. We were able to weather the storm into halftime,” said Athens coach Jake Lezak.
Nate Raupers wasted no time in the second half, getting the Wildcats on the board with a goal off an assist from Pat Riley at the 33:06 mark.
“In the second half we came out and took care of business,” said Lezak. “Raupers opened it up for us and our guys really took it home from there.”
Mike Soprano took a pass from Connor Murphy and scored just four minutes later to give the Wildcats a 2-0 lead with under 30 minutes left.
Isaac Clark put the final proverbial nail in the Trojans’ coffin with 28:37 left on an unassisted goal for a 3-0 Wildcats lead.
Athens led 6-5 in shots on goal and held a 3-2 edge in corner kicks.
David Munn stopped five shots for the Wildcats and Tyler Gordon had three saves for the Trojans.
Sayre 2, Northeast Bradford 0
Sayre traveled to  Northeast Bradford and came away with a 2-0 shutout victory.
The Redskins opened the scoring at 20:09 into the first half on a goal by Trey Hildebrandt with an assist from Terrence Meeker.
In the second half, Ryan Mullen was taken down in the penalty area and converted on the penalty kick at 12:35 for the final score of the game.
Sayre had 18 shots and three corner kicks and Tyler Young made five saves.
Northeast Bradford had 15 shots and 7 corner kicks and Chad Hainley stopped nine shots.
Sayre (6-5 overall, 4-5 NTL) will host Towanda on Saturday with a 2 p.m. start scheduled.