Overtime unkind to Jackson girls

The Class 3 District 1 girls soccer tournament ended in storybook fashion Wednesday night.

Unfortunately for the host and top-seeded Indians, the story's fortunate and happy ending belonged to Seckman's Pam Silies in her team's 3-2 overtime victory.

"Honestly the balls were bouncing all over the place," Seckman coach Jeff Perry said. "It was just backspin and mis-kicks and it went to my striker and she scored and broke the school record for goals in a season."

It was the freshman's 19th goal of the season.

"It bounced right in front of [the goalkeeper], and I was like, 'Oh, my god,'" Silies said. "I was just like, 'Breathe.' I just tapped it around, and I saw a wide open goal."

The score came with 6 minutes, 21 seconds left in the first 15-minute overtime period.

"To be quite honest, it just looked like a ball that got played into the box and maybe would normally be a routine thing," Jackson coach Justin McMullen said. "It was just unfortunate. I think it fell out of her hands, and they were right there to capitalize on it."

Jackson, which defeated Seckman 3-0 earlier in the season, ended the year with a 20-3-1 record.

"I wanted them to know it's part of life," McMullen said of his post-game message. "You're going to come through some tough times. You know, we're going to pick our heads up and we'll be fine. Eventually we'll get over it, but not tonight or the next couple of days. That's just kind of what we talked about -- we walk off the field and we walk out of here with our heads up high. They gave me everything that I asked them to do this season. I'm really proud of them, but at the same time there's certainly disappointment there."

Seckman goalkeeper Hannah Spraul reacts as Jackson's Cassidi Tomsu celebrates her tying goal against in the second half of the Class 3 District 1 title game, Wednesday, May 15, 2013 in Jackson. Seckman won 3-2 in overtime. (Laura Simon)

The Indians scored first when freshman Cassidi Tomsu broke free from the multiple defenders that shadowed her most of the game and maneuvered around Seckman goalkeeper Hannah Spraul to make a difficult score look remarkably simple.

"We played them early in the season and she scored 46 seconds into the game, so I think that they kind of knew that No. 12 was the danger player out there," McMullen said. "She was definitely creating a lot of opportunities still yet with three or four players on her."

Tomsu earned multiple similar opportunities throughout the game with the help of her teammates, which drew Spraul out of goal to make saves on several occasions.

"I think that was part of their game plan because they knew that they were going to have to do -- even with them having three players on [Tomsu], she was still going to be able to get behind them, so they were going to have to have their goalkeeper to be able to play aggressive," McMullen said. "She did a great job tonight. Without their goalkeeper, it's a different story for sure. She came up big there on several opportunities that we had when we got in behind them."

Seckman evened the score on a corner kick with 23 minutes left in the first half and added a second score with just under seven minutes left in the half when Megan Dexter lofted a ball high in the the back corner of the net.

"I think that's part of the wind there. We didn't get a read on it, but normally we would make that save," said McMullen. "I think that when it first came off her foot we were a little bit surprised of how it trickled in there."

McMullen said the breeze aided Seckman in the opening half.

"They liked to play balls over the top and run onto them," he said. "Certainly with the wind, they played that to their advantage. I felt that we could have adjusted a little bit better against the wind by bringing the ball down, but the second half I felt like that we were certainly the better side. We were unfortunate there in the overtime with a little mishap."

The Indians created more scoring opportunities as the second half progressed before Tomsu broke free with 15:17 left in regulation to tie the game.

"We were actually passing the ball to our team," McMullen said. "We were doing a good job of possession there. That was wearing them down, and we were being more aggressive to 50-50 balls and we were winning the second ball. That was wearing them down. I felt like our intensity picked up. We were able to get free because we were knocking the ball around and that allowed them to kind of lose their shape defensively."

It was Seckman that dominated play in overtime. The Jaguars nearly scored three times before Silies ended the game.

"We just had to come in fired up, and we did," Perry said. "The first 40 minutes we were pretty non-stop. The last 30 minutes of regulation kind of wasn't that good, and we knew we had to get the fire back. We just pounced on the mistake that they made and we finished."