Johnson Advances To NAC Semi's With Thrilling Win in PK's
WATERVILLE, Maine - The #6 seeded Johnson State College Badgers avenged a regular-season loss to #3 seeded Thomas College in the North Atlantic Conference Quarterfinals on Wednesday by out dueling the home Terriers 7-6 in penalty kicks. With the win the Badgers advance to NAC Semifinals and will play at #2 seeded Castleton State College on Sunday at 1:00 pm.
Johnson, now 6-8-2 on the season, got on the board first at the 20:54 mark of the first half when Noor Bulle (Fr., Somalia/Burlington) dribbled the end line, looked to center the ball, and saw the pass deflect off numerous players, lastly a Thomas player, and into the goal for an 'own goal' and the 1-0 JSC lead.
Thomas would knot the score at 1-1 at 64:07 when an Antonio Juco pass founds its way through the feet of the JSC defense and to Terrier top scorer Tim Costa who collected and finished with a goal.
Shortly after that score Thomas saw the would-be go-ahead goal nulified on a foul call. Johnson keeper Steve Noyes (Sr., Barre, Vt./Spaulding) rose to save a ball and was pushed in the stomach to have the bar jarred loose. Thomas quickly pounced on the loose ball and found the back of the net but was quickly erased by the center field referee due to the illegal contact with Noyes.
Thomas controlled possession throughout a large portion of the game with Johnson State getting many of their best scoring opportunities on counter attacks. Thomas outshot the Badgers 21-9 on the day and 9-1 on corner kick opportunities.
Into overtime the teams would go where Johnson could not generate a shot attempt but limited the Terrier to only three in the 20 totals minutes of the two overtime stanzas.
In one of the most exciting scenes in sports the teams would go to penalty kicks with the season on the line. Each team would fire five consecutive attempts at just the keeper with the best of score out of five declared the winner.
Thomas shot first and were successful on all five attempts with Noyes coming close to saves on several of the tries. The pressure was put on the Johnson shooters who responded with five scores of their own. Noor Bulle, Chad Koenig (So., Warren, Vt./Harwood), Ryan Joy (So., North Montpelier, Vt./U-32), Victor Abass (Jr., Sudan, Cedar Park Christian), and Alex Komeyan (Sr., Essex, Vt./Essex) were responsible for the JSC kicks.
The team's would move to alternating kicks with Thomas getting their sixth score that was then matched by Gai Gai (Jr., Sudan/South Burlington) for a 6-6 PK score.
The seventh Thomas kicker attempted to allow Noyes to vacate his stance and shoot down the middle but Noyes did not budge and easily caught the ball shot to him for the huge save and the stage set for victory.
The seventh JSC shooter, Christopher Keefer (Sr., Montague, N.J./Port Jervis), lift Johnson to the semifinal birth on Sunday by beating Thomas keeper James Leibowitz and a frenzied celebration ensued.
Noyes made eight saves in the win for Johnson State while Leibowitz recorded six stops. Thomas finishes their season with a 5-8-4 record overall.