Boys soccer: East Aurora rallies, then tops Plainfield North in shootout

The Tomcats overcame a 4-1 deficit with 25:00 remaining to win the Plainfield North Classic championship

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PLAINFIELD — Early in the second half, it looked like Plainfield North had salted away the championship game of the Plainfield North Classic.

The Tigers (11-2) took a 4-1 lead over East Aurora with 36:24 to play when Cooper Allen scored on a penalty kick.

The trouble was, no one bothered to tell East Aurora that the match was over as the Tomcats stormed back for a 5-4 win on penalty kicks.

The Tomcats continued to attack aggressively, and scored on a penalty kick of its own when Martin Gaytan scored with 24:56 left to make it 4-2. At the 15:52 mark, East Aurora’s Cristian Ibarra scored on a rebound and suddenly, it was 4-3.

East Aurora kept the pressure on and it finally paid off. With just over a minute left, Erick Magallon had a free kick from near the 30-yard line. The ball sailed toward the goal and bounced off North goalie Peyton Meyers’ hands. East Aurora sophomore Jay Umara hustled to the ball and booted it in to tie it with :54 left. Regulation ended in a 4-4 tie, and the match went to penalty kicks.

Both East Aurora’s Javier Aguirre and North’s Justin Williams put their kicks home. In the next round, Magallon scored for East Aurora, but Allen’s shot went high for North. Sammy Camacho scored for East Aurora, and East Aurora goalie Efrain Rosales - the tournament MVP - swatted away Brady Harwood’s shot to make it 3-1 after three rounds. Meyers blocked Jose Sosa’s shot to keep North alive, but Reyes blocked the attempt by the Tigers’ Timi Usikalu to end it.

“We didn’t go into cruise control,” North coach Lukasz Majewski said. “We know how to play with the lead. We have been doing it most of the year. You have to give credit where credit us due. East Aurora never quit.

“When you give up three penalty kicks, we have to do better on defense.”

North had several chances early in the match, but could not find the back of the net until Allen scored with 19:07 left in the first half. Williams followed with a goal on a free kick from the 19-yard line with 12:56 to play to put the Tigers ahead, 2-0. East Aurora scored when Gaytan scored on a penalty kick with 9:43 until halftime, but Williams answered with a pretty goal a minute later to give the Tigers a 3-1 lead, which they took into halftime.

“The game could have been 6 or 7 to 2, and it would have been over,” Majewski said. “But, we had some easy chances that we let get away. When you let teams hang around, especially a good team like East Aurora, things like this happen.

“Giving up four goals is not typical for us. We are an offensive-minded team and sometimes we take risks in the back, but we still don’t normally give up four goals.

“This is a good lesson for us, and it’s good it happened now instead of in the postseason. We will learn from it and get back to work Monday.”

Allen, Meyers, Williams, Usikalu and Sean Elster were named to the all-tournament team for the Tigers.