Pelon Munoz wasn’t sure he could come back in for South Elgin.

After taking a foul and scoring on a penalty with 30 seconds left in the first half of the Class 3A South Elgin sectional final, the junior striker gingerly limped off the pitch after getting a cramp in his right thigh.

But when St. Charles North equalized the game with four minutes remaining in regulation, he knew he had to get back out there.

“I couldn’t really move it at first,” Munoz said. “But after they tied it up, I told coach I was going back in, I felt like I was going to score.”

Lucky for the Storm, Munoz’s intuition was spot on.

The junior scored four minutes into the second overtime, helping the third-seeded Storm to a 3-2 victory over the eighth-seeded North Stars on Saturday to secure their first sectional title in school history.

“He put the responsibility on himself to be the guy, and he really wanted to be that guy,” Storm coach Jerzy Skowron said. “He very happily puts his team on his back, and he’s learning how to how to be a finisher and a forward. We’re seeing him grow as a player and he’s growing at the right time.”

It was the second straight double overtime game for the Storm (22-3-1). Their sectional semifinal against Bartlett went past the overtime stage all the way to penalty kicks, in which they won 7-6 after 10 rounds.

“It’s definitely not the first heart attack I’ve had this season,” Skowron joked. “But credit to St. Charles North, they’ve been a fighting team all postseason. They’re big, athletic and they don’t stop. It’s why they got to this point.”

The North Stars (11-7-3) showed that fight late into regulation. South Elgin jumped to a 2-1 lead in the 46th minute on a goal from senior Jacob Buthman, and North was desperate to find the net as the clock wound down.

But with 4:37 remaining in the game, junior Dino Valenti found an opening, dribbling past the Storm’s stout back line before slotting the ball into the bottom corner to tie it at 2-2. Valenti finished his postseason run with goals in all four postseason games.

“As soon as I saw I was one-on-one with the goalie, I knew I was scoring,” Valenti said. “We had to keep pushing. I just wanted to keep pushing our team to keep winning games. I knew we couldn’t stop here, we had to keep fighting.”

St. Charles North got the initial jump in the contest in the 39th minute of play, with senior Ashton Goettel bumping in a header from Jacob Piper off of a free kick for the early advantage.

“We’ve been connecting on those set pieces, that’s been a big part of our run,” Goettel said. “We’ve got some big kids in the back, so I thought it was a good plan to run with. We just wanted to go up and go win a ball and do our job.”

The lead was short-lived, as 57 seconds later, Munoz got the Storm on the board off of his free kick to enter halftime tied 1-1.

“We didn’t want to end the first half with them beating us,” Munoz said. “We had a nice breakaway and I took a touch in before I got the penalty. I had to sit down for a bit, but then I took the shot because I felt confident that I could.”

Goettel is one of five seniors that the North Stars graduate from the roster. But with nine of their starters returning next season, he’s confident that the team can make a return to the sectional title game sooner rather than later.

“I think me, (senior) Nolan Schoenholz and (junior) Wicho DelaPaz all definitely got them ready for next season.” Goettel said. “We showed every practice throughout the season that we were giving 110%, even when we started the year 1-4. We really held each other to a standard, so I think that’ll go pretty far for them moving on through their high school career.”

South Elgin, meanwhile, will take on Glenbrook North in the Barrington Class 3A supersectional at 6 p.m. Tuesday. The top-seeded Spartans defeated No. 3 Stevenson 3-1 to win the Hersey sectional title.

“We’re still learning and still growing,” Skowron said. “We feel like we’ve been disrespected as a program for so long as a program. We’ve got the talent here, and we’ve finally been able to take all of that stuff and put it together to this point.”