Jared Schaefer bolted from the mob of teammates. He and Agustin Armenta veered toward the crowd of Spartan fans waiting along the sideline, and the two each busted out a headfirst slide in the mud.
The two heroes of back-to-back Spartan overtime victories were dirty and soaked. Their team, on the other hand, is entering the postseason sparkling and clean.
Schaefer’s goal off a cross from Jesus Saldana less than seven minutes into overtime gave Emporia High a 2-1 victory over Garden City on Thursday at TRYSA, and the No. 2 seed in the Central Kansas Regional.
With the No. 2 seed, the Spartans (10-5-1) are guaranteed home-field advantage in both rounds of Regionals when postseason play begins on Tuesday — meaning EHS has given itself about as good a shot as it could have to make the State tournament. No wonder that even their coach was brimming with confidence afterward.
“Now that we have these two games here, we have a really good chance,” Spartan coach Angel Cornejo said. “It doesn’t matter who we play here. We’re going to State.”
Spartan fans couldn’t have been nearly so confident after Garden City’s Jyonatan Porta scored from about 30 feet out with just 3:26 remaining in the second half, giving Garden an equalizer for Cory Obermeyer’s first-half goal. Porta’s low line-drive boot wasn’t kicked extremely hard, but it took a wicked single hop in front of Spartans freshman goalie Elvis Delacruz and into the net.
“That was a heartbreaker right there,” Schaefer said. “But we knew going into overtime that we had to play strong and just keep it up. And we did.”
Since Obermeyer’s 18th-minute goal off an assist from Saul Trujillo, the Spartans had been playing mostly defensive soccer, slogging their way up and down TRYSA’s muddy field while keeping Garden’s unthreatening offense from generating many scoring opportunities. The energy level didn’t appear high.
But after Porta’s goal, the Spartans visibly came to life, sensing that they might be blowing a huge chance for postseason success. A tie would have given Emporia that coveted two seed, also — but who wants to play for a tie?
Certainly not the Spartans. They attacked at the end of regulation — with Obermeyer whistling one decent shot attempt wide right just seconds before the horn — and again and again in overtime. Finally Saldana dribbled down the far side and lofted a cross. Schaefer found it at the near post and got it just past Garden’s Alberto Veyza at the 86:49 mark.
“Beautiful cross by (Saldana),” Schaefer said. “And I saw it coming, I saw the goalie coming, and I couldn’t head it — it was too low. So I just played it with my chest right into the goal.”
The celebration on the field and in the stands was just as loud and animated as it was on Tuesday, when Armenta scored in double overtime to lift Emporia over Wichita Heights.
“(All my) years in high school, we go to the Regional finals every year and never succeed in the finals,” Obermeyer said. “I think this is the first year that we can pull through.”
Emporia isn’t ending the regular season as exactly the same team it was at the beginning of the year — defender Blaze Witten is out for the season with a knee injury, and midfielder Luis Guzman quit the team earlier this week. But still, the Spartans are getting the job done.
“They’re playing good, playing like a team now,” Cornejo said. “So I think it’s a good time to finish it, to go to the playoffs. And we’ll just carry this momentum to the playoffs, and hopefully we’ll do well.”
Regional brackets will be released this weekend.
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