Tigers' soccer season ends in 4 OT

ST. LOUIS -- The string of playoff frustrations for Cape Girardeau Central High School's boys soccer team continued Tuesday -- but only by the slimmest of margins.

DeSmet's Mark Taylor blasted a rocket of a shot from about 30 yards past Central goalkeeper Trevor Blattner with just 12 seconds left in the fourth overtime as the Spartans prevailed 1-0 in a Class 4A Sectional game at the Anheuser-Busch Conference & Sports Centre.

The Spartans will carry a 16-6-6 record into Saturday night's quarterfinal round of the playoffs.

For the Tigers, their banner season ends with a 23-4-1 record as they saw an 18-game winning streak end. And Central also fell to 0-7 in sectional play as the Tigers have never advanced past the first round of the playoffs.

But Central coach Tom Doyle, despite the obvious disappointment of the sudden-death defeat, elected to look on the bright side of things.

"It's got to be encouraging to the kids," he said. "We took a powerhouse team that's always in the playoffs and has been to several final fours to the wire. And we've got a bunch of kids coming back."

Doyle was also glad that the marathon battle ended on a clean goal rather than a penalty-kick shootout, which would have been the case had things remained scoreless over the final 12 seconds.

"I'd rather it be on a clean shot than a shootout," he said. "They earned it. He (Taylor) hit a rocket. There was no doubt about it."

After 80 minutes of regulation ended without a goal, the teams began a series of up to four 10-minute, sudden-death overtime periods. The first three extra sessions also went by without incident, although DeSmet had a pair of golden scoring opportunities, including one shot that hit the crossbar.

Then, with it looking for all the world like things were headed for a shootout, Taylor stunned the Tigers as he blasted a wicked shot that beat Blattner -- who played impressively all game -- to the upper right corner.

"I got all of it," said an excited Taylor. "It started to tail away and I think it got in the side netting right below the crossbar."

DeSmet coach Greg Vitello said he expected a tough, tight battle with the Tigers.

"I saw them play last Friday. I expected all this and more. Both teams left it all on the field today," Vitello said.

Doyle couldn't have agreed more.

"I'm very proud of all my players. They left it all out on the field and so did DeSmet," he said. "My hat's off to both teams."

While DeSmet controlled much of the play -- the ball seemed like it was in Central's end at least three-fourths of the game -- the Spartans either failed to come up with good scoring chances or failed to convert when they did.

After a somewhat sluggish first half, the Tigers picked things up in the second half and actually had the better of the play over about the final 15 minutes of regulation.

"The last eight to 12 minutes we had some good opportunities," Doyle said.

But the only opportunity that really counted was converted by Taylor, who ended nearly 120 minutes of scoreless soccer with one mighty blast off his right foot.