Sam Houston Edges UTSA in Double Overtime
NATCHITOCHES, La. - Sam Houston State sophomore Kate Wesneski scored with 11 seconds left in regulation to force overtime and freshman Shelby Grissett left-footed in the game-winner with 31 seconds to play in the second overtime as No. 4 Sam Houston defeated No. 5 UTSA 3-2 to advance to the semifinals of the Southland Conference Soccer tournament Thursday night.
In Sam Houston's third tournament appearance in the soccer program's seven years, the Bearkats got on the board quickly as Hailey Rohlmeier scored 29 seconds into the contest. Grissett crossed the ball from the left side to Rohlmeier just inside the six-yard box.
UTSA evened the match 1-1 at the 16:58 mark as freshman Clare Jakubowski crossed a ball into junior Allison Dillon who scored from eight yards out.
The Roadrunners took a 2-1 lead on a goal by sophomore Taylor Padia at 53:47 and appeared headed to victory dominating play for most of the second half.
But, with the final seconds ticking away, freshman Paige Rodriguez sent an in-swinging corner kick to the near post that sophomore Kate Wesneski flicked into the far corner of the goal with her head to tie the contest and force overtime.
After an interception on the right wing with the clock ticking away again, Kirby Zak passed to Grissett who scored the game winner at 109:29.
Sam Houston State will face Southland regular season champion Texas State in the semifinals at 7 p.m. Friday.
Live stats as well as streaming video and audio are available on SLC NOW on the Southland Conference web site at www.southland.org.
Tom Brown Coach Sam Houston State
We were 31 seconds away from going to penalties and we score just a brilliant goal. What a great job by our young team. We got the goals when we needed them.
Shelby Grissett, Sam Houston State
It was just amazing. We're such a clutch team. We were so pumped and ready to go coming into the playoffs. Kirby made a great pass and I just turned on the ball and kicked it in. This was just an unbelievable game.
Steve Ballard Coach UTSA
We have to give it to Sam Houston. They fought until the end and got a goal to tie it up in the final minute and they did the same thing in the double overtime. Congratulations to them and I wish them well.
We could have won the head ball but that didn't happen. They did a good job of winning it and flicking it in the goal. That's the game of soccer and that's how it goes.
The last month has been very tough and things haven't gone our way. We fought very hard. The girls fought to the very end.
Taylor Padilla
We played so well the whole game. It was just bad positioning on our end. We gave it our all, but we got unlucky in the last minute of the game and unfortunately we lost.
They gave a lot of effort. They outhustled us in that last minute. If we would have given it our all in the last minute, I think we could have gone to penalty kicks. We would have been very confident going into that.
Of course we were very upset. We couldn't have asked more from the team, especially the seniors. We couldn't have asked more from anybody.