The Barton Community College men’s soccer team won a last-minute, heart-stopping victory against Western Texas at Cougar Fields on Saturday, scoring two goals to rally for a 2-1 win and take the NJCAA Plains District championship.
With the win, the Cougars have clinched a berth in the NJCAA national tournament at Tyler, Texas, on Nov. 18.
“You know, we didn’t play very well until the last 20 minutes,” Barton head coach Oliver Twelvetrees said. “We really didn’t. We had a hard time putting passes together.
“They are a very talented team, but in the end, we showed the heart.”
This game might go down in the history books at Barton as the most surprising finish for Cougars soccer. Not to mention the fact that it was Twelvetrees’ final home game at Barton as he will take up the task of building the men’s soccer program from scratch at Fort Hays State University next year.
If that wasn’t enough, it is also the final game to be played on Cougar Fields. Next season, the soccer teams will play on the brand new artificial turf field built on campus.
“I was going through a lot of emotions on the sideline,” Twelvetrees said. “It is fantastic. It’s a dream come true. It was the best moment at Barton, that moment of that winning goal. That was something that I will always remember.”
The first half was a hard-fought battle that saw no goals and only four shots taken between the two teams.
The half ended with Ricardo Yeverino getting a yellow card for one of 10 Barton team fouls. Yeverino joined Sam McCrillis, Aaron Appel, Kevin Ellis and Ous Senghore as first-team all-conference players in the Kansas Jayhawk Community College Conference.
Western Texas relied on its defense in the first half, running quickly to the ball, keeping the Cougars from getting into the box and waiting for Barton’s defense to break down.
After seven minutes in the second half, Barton’s defense broke down momentarily.
The Westerners were there to capitalize.
Samuel Haynes hit Billy Forbes at the top of the goal box. Forbes beat goalkeeper Nathan Garrison one-on-one and planted the ball in the open net.
“(Western Texas) has so much speed all over the field, so it was a challenge for us,” Twelvetrees said of the Westerners defense. “I knew it was going to be a tough match up for us going in.”
After the Westerners scored, Barton became more desperate and began playing with a sense of urgency. As a result, the Cougars received three back-to-back yellow cards.
The urgency became compounded by two goals scored by Yeverino, which were called back by an offside call and hand ball violation, respectively.
Yeverino was given a red card while arguing against the hand ball violation, sending him to the bench for the rest of the game. The Cougars were forced to play with only 10 players for the last 23 minutes of the game.
Then with seven minutes left on the clock, Adrian Alvarez sent up a high-arching shot from the sidelines near the Barton bench. The ball arched over the Westerners’ goalie and dropped into the goal to knot the score at 1-1.
“Those last 10 minutes were so emotional,” Senghore said. “We had that never-say-die attitude, red card or not. We put everything aside, all of the games we won during the year and it doesn’t get any better than this.
The goal breathed life into the Cougars offense, which took 12 shots in the second half compared to its one in the first half.
The crucial moment for the Cougars came with 30 seconds left in regulation. When the Westerners were called for offsides for the 12th time in the game, the Cougars were given a free kick near the middle of the field.
Adrian Lockett took the kick and placed the ball just inside the box. Italo Arcelino, who usually plays defense for the Cougars, turned the ball and found the back of the net with 15 seconds left to play.
“We never gave up,” Twelvetrees said. “We just kept going and going. We have a leader in Italo Arcelino who scored the winning goal. He’s a defender, and we put him up front. He scored a magnificent goal to win the game.”