It took just 29 seconds.
Deadlocked with less than eight minutes remaining during Thursday’s Southwest Prairie Conference game at Oswego East, the host Wolves scored twice in 29 seconds to beat Yorkville, 3-1.
“We hit a couple posts, we had balls the goalie rebounded and we were a little bit off on follows and things like that,” Wolves coach Steve Szymanski said. “But I thought we persevered. We played hard. One thing about this team is we never give up. They fight, they battle, and I think we needed a little confidence boost.”
Oswego East (7-7-2, 4-6) went ahead 1-0 with 30:56 remaining in the game after Matt Lopez followed in a shot from Julian Nino that Yorkville goalkeeper Caleb Reveter couldn’t reel in.
“Coach always says look for the ball,” Lopez said. “We were talking about how the keeper doesn’t have the greatest hands so when I saw that shot go right at him, I just got to the right place at the right time so I was there and flicked it over.”
Yorkville (6-10-1, 3-6) battled back to tie it up at 1-1 with 13:24 remaining when Wyatt Panczuk found Alex Arriaga on a corner kick.
“That was me and Alex,” Panczuk said. “If it’s on he’ll run to the PK spot and I’ll hit him. It was exactly what we wanted to do.”
A bouncing ball his way somewhat surprised Oswego East’s Vikaris Majus before he used it to his advantage to put the Wolves ahead for good with 7:13 remaining. Majus fired just inside the near post for it to elude the diving Reveter.
“I just saw them play it back and it was a bad ball that bounced over and I just capitalized off of that,” Majus said. “I don’t think (Reveter) expected me to go there.”
Seconds after Majus had concluded his signature celebration handstand and backflip, his teammate Ashton Pope had given the team insurance just 29 seconds later with 6:44 left to play.
“I don’t remember much, I just remember somebody played the ball in the middle and it kind of flipped in front of me and I hit it straight first,” Pope said. “And it was right down the middle, and the keeper got a hand just right over and it bounced over.”
Yorkville has dropped its last three games.
“This is a great group of young men that coach (Jared) Perez and I are very proud of coaching and being a part of and we just have to continue to battle,” Foxes coach Chris Palmisano said. “We believe that we can compete with anybody and are going to go into a sectional now which is quite unbelievable.”
The win was the 200th in program history for the Wolves, who improved to 7-1 versus the Foxes since 2015.
“To be a part of win No. 200 in a way, it was fun,” Lopez said. “I feel like it was a good win. When they scored and we came back it felt like it was a good build up, especially with the 200-win mark. We were definitely feeling good.”