By Levi Payton
sports@joplinglobe.com
Perhaps the Carthage Tigers soccer team should go out and buy themselves a lottery ticket. Scratch that idea: maybe they should have someone else go out and purchase the lucky ticket for them.
For the second time in three days, the Tigers registered a dramatic overtime victory on Thursday without scoring a goal. In fact, the Joplin Eagles were the ones who scored in the double-overtime affair with a goal in the 107th minute, yet the Tigers were the ones celebrating a 1-0 victory and the Class 3 District 12 championship.
Fortunately for the Tigers, or unfortunately for Joplin, the goal came on a deflected corner kick that ricocheted off an Eagles player into his own net. Both teams were stunned.
“I don’t even know what to say,” Tigers coach Jacob Osborne said after a pause. “It’s all just been a flash over the last few days. Just getting to this moment is incredible.”
The Eagles aren’t alone in their frustrations either. Willard had the same thing happen in falling to the Tigers on Tuesday night on a play that was strikingly similar to Thursday’s finish.
Don’t misconstrue that as calling the Tigers’ championship a “lucky” quest. They definitely earned their title. Accounting for overtime minutes, they basically played three games in the span of two days before Thursday’s win.
This after they played just twice in two weeks leading up to Tuesday’s game.
“I think it just says a lot about the kids,” Osborne said. “They don’t quit.”
Both keepers played lights-out for their respective teams. After losing their starting keeper due to a broken hand the last time they played Joplin, the Tigers called upon sophomore Arnold Herrera heading into the playoffs, and he’s shown up in a big way.
Herrera turned in four saves for the Tigers, and all four were big ones. He twice took on Eagles standout Max Duncan in one-on-one situations and thwarted the scoring opportunity.
The same can be said for Eagles keeper Miguel Farias. He finished with six saves, and most of them were highlight-reel material as well.
It might have been easier had the two teams just flipped a coin to see who would win.
“You’ve just got to (take) your hats off to Carthage,” Eagles coach Ed Miller said. “They came out, they played hard, they hustled, they pressured every single ball and everybody on the team was running all over the place. They came out ready to play a championship game.”
The Tigers opened the first half in attack mode as they kept the ball on Joplin’s end a great deal of the first 40 minutes. The momentum teetered to the Eagles’ side in the second half as they took a turn on the attack. Yet neither team could find a way to punch the ball in the net.
Then, less than three minutes away from a shootout in the third overtime, one side finally gave way to the other.
After Joplin defeated the Tigers in overtime at the end of the regular season, this one went as expected. The squads were about as evenly matched as possible.
“I thought we came out and played hard in the second half,” Miller said. “It just seemed like they outworked us.”
The Tigers will play the winner of District 11 (Glendale or Kickapoo) in sectionals at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday at the Cooper Complex in Springfield.
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