North Hills boys soccer eyeing stronger finish to season

More fight and more finish. That’s the key for North Hills’ boys soccer team in 2026.

A year ago, the Indians got off to a promising start to the season, with a 6-1-1 record through their first eight games. But when mid-September hit, North Hills sank.

“We struggled a little bit with our overall willingness to compete at the end of the year there,” fourth-year head coach Kyle Boggs said. “When we made the turn in section play, we had the best record since I’ve been at North Hills. We looked OK, but then we struggled.

“We battled injuries and we struggled with some leadership to pick us up and push us through.”

North Hills went 1-8-1 down the stretch, missing the playoffs a year after posting the program’s first postseason win in 25 years.

“Coming into this year, we needed some stronger leadership to help rally our guys a little bit,” said Boggs, whose team finished last in Section 3-4A in goals scored per game. “We lacked a bit of creativity after graduating the 2024 class and 13 seniors.

“Last year was a valid effort, but I was a little disappointed with the way we finished out the season. I think we were better than we showed.”

Boggs now sees a team more committed to finishing the job and performing better as the games get tougher. An offseason of fostering that mindset seems to have resonated.

“I don’t care if you’re a freshman, if you’re going to come out and work hard, we want you and you can be a leader,” he said. “We want you to help our team grow. We’ve had culture meetings where we just work on building team chemistry. … It’s definitely helped create the leadership we were looking for.”

Early on, that seems to be the case. Through Sept. 7, the Indians were 3-1 with three straight clean sheets over Gateway, Hempfield and Connellsville. Those wins followed a season-opening 3-2 loss to 2025 WPIAL semifinalist Plum.

“Plum started strong,” Boggs said. “They wanted to get after us and put two quick ones in on us. We finally woke up and settled into the match a little bit, which was good.

“But it’s tough. We’ve played these crossover games against teams from other sections. We haven’t seen, in the nicest way, anybody like the teams in our section yet. We haven’t seen a Seneca Valley or North Allegheny or a Pine-Richland. So I’m skeptical to see how we will play good schools.

“I’m happy with the results. Those are all games I expect us to win… I’m excited to see how we handle section play because I think we have a good group.”

Offensively, players like Talan Tumsis, James Werner, Liam Clayton, Ryan Shapiro and Karter Schmidt are returners who have been strong at the start.

“We have a nice junior class that has been super helpful there,” Boggs said. “We’ve got some guys who are hungry for the ball. They want to score goals, which is great. We just need to see more of it.”

Defensively, the Indians have been more impressive.

“Our defense looks strong,” Boggs said. “We’re super happy with how the back line looks right now. We dropped Jack Hartle from the midfield against Plum to the back line. That has kind of solidified things.”

Luke Derence and Rocco Paliotta have helped in providing a strong line of defense in front of All-WPIAL goalkeeper Adrian Werner.

“Adrian’s a stud,” Boggs said. “He’s going to do fantastic this year. He’s really helping lead the charge. He’s driving the guys, telling them what they want, what he wants. I couldn’t be happier with the way he’s grown in four years.”

Overall, there’s cautious optimism within the North Hills program and from Boggs, who normally sets specific goals for his teams but decided against it this season after getting a good read of his group in the offseason.

“This is the first year where I’ve stepped off a little bit,” he said. “Normally, I run a culture meeting where we establish goals. This group seems like they know what they want. They want to win games.”