PHILADELPHIA - For 18 years, and 18 games this season the Roman Catholic Boys' Soccer team has been preparing for this title win. 

As the saying goes "it's all in the stars", well you may say they were aligned perfectly Sunday afternoon as the Cahillites took to the field at Ryan High School.

Roman made it to this moment after beating La Salle 1-0 in the semifinals.

The challenger-Father Judge, who remained undefeated until fate had other plans.

For 110 minutes, 30 of that in sudden-death overtime with both teams exhausted, and then it all came down to this...The Cahillites defeated the Crusaders 4-2, in penalty kicks. 

Remember those stars? Well, this, the final game of the season brought No. 28 Cahillite senior Stefano Aiello-Pang onto the field. Aiello-Pang was out the entire season due to a torn ACL. But this game, the final game, the game that would decide who would raise that trophy was the game Aiello-Pang was given the all-clear to play. Aiello-Pang made the winning penalty kick catapulting Roman, and their fans into PCL Championship bliss. 

"It was beyond amazing,” said Roman's head soccer coach Ray DeStephanis.  “Almost a made for movie moment. Pang out all year and recovering from an ACL surgery..off the bench for some set pieces late in the match and then boom, every youngster's dream...Nailing the championship winning PK. Aside from that, the crowd was probably 70-30 Roman Catholic-a sea of purple as far as you can see," said DeStephanis.

"We experienced that last year in the finals and wanted to be and revel in that atmosphere again."

Senior goalkeeper Mark Tobin has been proving his impeccable talent for safe-guarding his team’s net all season. This game was clearly no exception.

“Two saves just before halftime were in a word –world-class. And then, two saves in the penalty round. Who does that at this level? I, we have had a great honor to have him be our keeper during this amazing run,” said DeStephanis.

DeStephanis could not say enough about his goalie, one assured he will greatly miss.

“There’s nothing more important to the confidence of a team than to know a mistake is not going to burn you because you’ve got Mark Tobin in the net…In so many ways he not only safe guarded our house, but he also kick started our offense with his field generalship and awareness.”

In reflecting about this win, DeStephanis knew the tides were turning.

“One-by-one, all the teams that used to circle us in as a W on their schedule, we started knocking them off.  La Salle, Wood,  Prep…one-by-one as the years passed... Father Judge was the last team in that chain,” said DeStephanis.

“Our boys knew we were the better team two weeks ago but they got the result. Our seniors were resolved to the fact that this wasn’t going to happen on their watch again.”

Ah...those stars…