Moon Area has the talent to win another WPIAL Class AA boys' soccer title. Coach Arne Thomas was also hoping his team could stay healthy, as it did in last year's championship season. Avoiding the injury bug hasn't happened, but winning the championship remains a big possibility.

"We don't have as much depth and last year we really didn't have anyone injured, but already this season we've come up with a few injuries that we just have to battle through," Thomas said.

The Tigers (3-1, 2-0) won their first two Section 3-AA games last week against the teams considered to be big threats for the section championship. Moon downed rival Thomas Jefferson, 1-0, and edged Elizabeth Forward, 2-1. Moon travels to Hopewell tomorrow and plays host to Keystone Oaks Saturday. Both are section games.

Moon was the preseason No. 1 WPIAL AA team. Its only loss was 3-2 in a non-section game last Saturday to Sewickley Academy, one of the best teams in Class A.

"Whenever you're No. 1, the other teams play so much harder to try and beat you," Thomas said.

"I don't necessarily like to wear that number on our chest, but we're going to try and play as hard as we can every game."

Moon was missing several players against Sewickley. Junior defender Scott Peterson was sidelined with a concussion. Senior all-WPIAL forward John Morihlatko scored 13 seconds into the game against Sewickley before going to the bench three minutes later with a hamstring pull.

"Every time he gets the ball, he's a threat to score," Thomas said. "He makes the other team's job so difficult to defend.

"If we can just find one of our younger guys to step up and score some goals, it's going to take the pressure off John and make it tougher for other teams defensively."

Senior midfielder Matt Kaiser attempted to play against Sewickley, but had to sit down because of the flu.

"I'm never one of those coaches who will say, 'could have, should have, would have'. We lost the game to Sewickley. That's it," Thomas said. "I don't need to make excuses.

"It was a very difficult week for us, but when we look back on it down the road it will be considered a successful week because we got the two section wins that we wanted."

Other experienced players include senior stopper Greg Lani, senior midfielder Jeremy Pronto and senior defender Eric Hamilton. The rest of the lineup is filled with relatively inexperienced varsity players: junior goalkeeper Brad Yingst, senior midfielder Jeremy Brinkley, sophomore midfielder/forward Joel Kubias, sophomore midfielder Chris Suess, junior sweeper Andy McDonald, junior forward Matt Munizza and freshman forward Ryan Suess.

"With so many guys who haven't played much varsity before, it definitely would have been nice to open the section against somebody else besides TJ [the preseason No. 2 team], but it was a good way to get our feet wet. The last two years our lineup has been consistent," Thomas said.

The section has become more challenging this season. First-year section member Elizabeth Forward is an experienced team that had made the playoffs the previous three years in Section 1-AA. Montour, a fourth-place team competing in 5-AAA last year, has also joined the section. Moon plays host to the rival Spartans Sept. 23.