An hour after TRYSA turned out the lights on itself, Agustin Armenta turned out the lights on Wichita Heights.
Teammates mobbed Armenta after his goal from about 20 feet out gave Emporia High a 2-1 double-overtime win over Heights on Tuesday, ending a marathon match that needed two fields and two-and-a-half hours to be decided.
“It just amazed me,” an out-of-breath Armenta said. “Because at the beginning, I was taking some shots like that. And I knew I was gonna make it — it was gonna be this game or next game.”
A few minutes into the second overtime, Armenta dribbled from the near side toward the top of the circle, then lined a perfect shot into the far corner.
“Actually, when we were over there, I didn’t think we were gonna score,” Emporia coach Angel Cornejo said. “But once we moved over here, (Heights) couldn’t get out of their half, and I was just waiting for it.”
By “there” and “here,” Cornejo was referring to TRYSA’s Field H and Field I. The match began on H, as all EHS home matches this season have. But the lights on the south side of Field H went out with about 25 minutes left in the second half. With the north side of the field still lit up, the match briefly continued. But with 23:46 left on the clock, officials stopped play.
“I don’t think it’s fair for any players to play with half (the) lights,” Cornejo said. “And I can’t see as it is with the lights on.”
Attempts to get the lights back on initially failed — at one point in the process, the entire field went dark — so the match was moved south to Field I. Spartan fans, who had booed the stoppage of play, faithfully marched to the Field I bleachers on the opposite end, and play resumed after about a 15-minute delay.
Emporia stayed on the attack on the new field. Heights’ goalkeeper prevented a one-hop shot by Yonathan Pachacano and a free kick by Saul Trujillo from getting into the net during the first overtime. The Falcons gave themselves a chance toward the end of the first OT, but Bruce Crandon’s shot from the far side was deflected to Spartan goalkeeper Elvis Delacruz, who cleared it.
Heights’ Dani Corimonas launched a shot from around the top of the circle early in the second OT that smacked off the crossbar and out of bounds. Not long after that, Armenta got his chance and dribbled left to right, finding enough space to launch the winning shot.
Jared Schaefer scored Emporia’s first goal, tapping in a bouncing pass to the near side from Cory Obermeyer in the game’s 51st minute. That score tied it at 1 after a first-half goal from Heights’ Johannas Adler, who got an assist from Corimonas.
“I think we just wanted that win more than they did,” Cornejo said. “They kind of slowed the game when they had the ball. When there was a free kick, they wanted to slow the game down, and we just wanted the win. And we needed that win.”
They needed the win because the Spartans, now at 9-5-1 on the year, will enter their final regular-season game with the chance to clinch the No. 2 seed in their Central Kansas regional. If the Spartans beat Garden City on Thursday at TRYSA, they’ll earn the No. 2 seed in the Regional and would have home-field advantage throughout the two rounds of Regionals.
Wichita Heights, which Emporia beat 3-2 earlier this year at the Titan Classic, fell to 6-8 with Tuesday’s loss.
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