WATERFORD >> The Walled Lake Central Vikings got a hat trick from Gabe Cancellera and punched their ticket to the district finals with a 3-1 win over a gritty group of North Farmington Raiders Tuesday night.

Walled Lake Central owned the ball in the first half. The Vikings filled up the shot chart while holding the Raiders without a shot on goal, and Cancellera opened the scoring with 23:18 to play in the first half when he banged in a rebound to give Walled Lake Central a 1-0 lead.

He added his second goal right before the half when he took a slotted pass from Nolan Kashat, rounded the goalkeeper, and scored into the empty net just before the half.

The Vikings looked good value for their lead at that point, but things would change in the second half.

North Farmington had fielded a cobbled together lineup due to injuries with several players playing out of their usual spots, but as the Raiders got more comfortable in their new positions, the team as a whole started to find their footing. And with that came a few chances of their own.

“They were battling. A lot of guys were banged up,” Raiders head coach Erika Rust said. “I think that took some adjusting to by a lot of the guys playing different positions. So we had to build up some confidence there. But I’m really, really proud of how resilient they were, how they continued getting better as the game went on.”

Led by the play of Deva Sleva and Sullivan Totin, the Raiders came out of halftime a different and better team and immediately set about making it clear that the second half would be a different proposition for the Vikings. North Farmington got on the board thanks to a 30-yard screamer from Totin to cut Central’s lead to 2-1 with more than 30 minutes left on the clock.

The Raiders kept working throughout the half and created a couple of other quality shots that just missed, but ultimately the experienced Vikings were able to readjust due in part to their overall cohesion and time together.Central capped the scoring late with a beautiful team move punctuated with Marcus Kashat setting up Cancellera for his hat trick by sliding a beautiful cross into space for Cancellera to run onto on the back side for the finish.

“That’s where I think we’ve been really unselfish, and the funny thing about Gabe getting three goals tonight is that he’s our assist leader,” Vikings head coach Joel Sharpe said. “Especially this time of year, next man up, right? Whoever is going to be in those situations, and whatever the team is going to give us, we took advantage of tonight. Right now, it was Gabe’s night, and he finished for us.”

The Vikings (13-3-2) will face top seed West Bloomfield in Friday’s district final at Waterford Mott High School.

“West Bloomfield looks like a good team. They’re the number one seed for a reason in the district, and I think it’s going to be a great game. I look forward to getting our boys ready and getting out and trying to stop their offensive attack. I think it’s going to be two good offenses going at each other, and hopefully, we’ll defend well as a team,” Sharpe said.

The Raiders finish the year 8-10-1.

“Some ups and downs, some growing pains,” Rust said. “Even though we had a good number of seniors, overall in terms of guys that played a lot of minutes, we still had a pretty young team. But I think our last few efforts are some of our best ones. I think the guys came together as a team in a lot of key moments. But there is a lot of learning and growth that took place this season, and I look forward to seeing how that pays off next year as well.”