SALISBURY TOWNSHIP - Strong goaltending and solid defense helped the Tamaqua boys soccer team qualify for postseason play.

The Blue Raiders displayed both of those strengths again on Tuesday in a District 11 Class 2A qualifying round game against Pen Argyl.

It wasn’t enough, however, as the Green Knights took advantage of a decided edge in ball possession and scoring opportunities to defeat Tamaqua, 2-0.

The loss ends the season for a youthful Raider team that has struggled offensively this year.

Tamaqua - which averaged just 1.5 goals a game this season and scored more than two goals in a game just twice - was shut out for the sixth time.

“I thought we played hard,” said Tamaqua coach Jim Fisher. “But Pen Argyl is a good defensive team, and we struggled to get much offense generated against them.

“We’re not a team that is going to score a bunch of goals, so we don’t have a lot of margin for error. But we were still just a goal down midway through the second half. We just couldn’t get that tying goal.”

Despite the loss, Jonathan Ulicny had a strong performance in goal for the Raiders. Ulicny finished with 10 saves, and also did a nice job coming out of goal and cutting off or punching away numerous Pen Argyl crosses and corner kicks.

“Jonathan (Ulicny) gave us another strong game in goal, but we weren’t able to do enough offensively to take advantage of that,” said Fisher. “He has played well for us all season.”

Pen Argyl got the only goal it would need with 24:49 left in the opening half when Cade Dietz took a pass from Hassan Strandzhev and fired the ball past Ulicny.

The Knights had numerous chances to increase the spread, including one stretch early in the second half where they had five corners in the span of about nine minutes. Ulicny and the Raider defense stood up to the onslaught, however, to keep things interesting.

Tamaqua came close to tying the game with just over 21 minutes remaining as Jacob Schlier got control of the ball on the top of the 18-yard box, made a quick pivot, and got off a hard shot. But the ball went straight into the arms of Pen Argyl goalie Graham Rose.

The Knights finally got their insurance goal with 14:13 remaining as Lance Albanese drilled the ball into the bottom left corner of the net. Strandzhev once again picked up the assist.

“We are a young team,” said Fisher. “I thought we matured and got better as the season went on.

“At the same time, it’s disappointing because I feel like our record should have been better. We let some leads get away, especially late in the season. The good news is we have a lot of kids that played key roles for us back next season.”

RECORDS ... Tamaqua finishes with a 7-11-1 record. Pen Argyl improves to 11-8.

NUMBERS ... The Green Knights had a 15-5 advantage in shots, and an 8-2 edge in corners. In addition to the 10 saves by Ulicny, Kevin Bazan - who entered for Ulicny with about five minutes remaining - made one save.

UP NEXT ... Pen Argyl, the No. 7 seed, will now travel to No. 2 seed Notre Dame for a quarterfinal round matchup on Thursday.