Aidan Wilson pushes the ball aggressively during an epic comeback win. (Photos by JohnsPhotos.net)
They got by with a little help from their friends.
And when you play on the prairie, there’s no pal quite like the wind – if you know how to use it.
Navigating the swirls like pros, the Coupeville High School boys soccer squad pulled off one of the more stunning pitch comebacks in memory Saturday, coming from three goals behind to win a thriller.
Down 4-1 at the half, and with the wind suddenly at their backs, the Wolves stormed back to tie the game in stoppage time, survived two scoreless overtime periods, then won a shoot-out thanks to a little help from Mother Nature.
The official final score was 5-4, and the win, coming on Senior Night, lifts Coupeville to 4-8 in Northwest 2B/1B League play.
The Wolves finish the season on the road, with trips to face league leaders Orcas Island (11-2) and Providence Classical Christian (11-1) Oct. 26 and 28, respectively.
But, before it heads off on the Road Trip of Death, Coupeville gave its fans a sendoff for the ages.
Tony Garcia was honored on Senior Night.
As was Xavier Murdy.
There were miracle goals, raw emotion, a fair amount of wind, the velvet voice of PA announcer Ja’Kenya Hoskins one final time, and tears.
Like a lot of tears.
And those facial drops, which mainly came from Lopez players, were earned and understandable.
The Lobos, who are a co-ed team, dominated play for a huge chunk of the game, and seemed headed for their own well-deserved, and much-needed, win.
“They owned us today, all day. That’s what I told our guys,” said Coupeville coach Robert Wood. “But we had a friend, and that friend was the wind.”
Lopez had used the weather to its advantage in the first half, building that 4-1 lead thanks to well-placed shots which got a nice boost from the breeze.
Coupeville scraped out one goal, the fifth of the season from sophomore sensation Nick Guay, but trying to drive into the wind was difficult at best, impossible at worst.
Things were looking dire, but the Wolves reached down someplace deep and found a will to win that was, frankly, pretty dang inspiring.
Plus, they had the wind at their backs in the second half, and Mother Nature was a homer after all.
Alex Murdy netted a goal six minutes into the second half, also his fifth of the season, and there was a brief spark of life.
But the Lopez goalie was a scrambler, and, facing a barrage, he knocked more shots wide of the net than he allowed to come inside.
Both Murdy and Cael Wilson had dead-eye shots which couldn’t quite find pay-dirt, and the clock was ticking madly down.
No worries.
Grant Steller, who plays with a laidback ease mixed with serious grit, took a ball from Murdy and slapped it past the flailing netminder, and suddenly we were looking at a 4-3 game.
Even then, though, Lopez still seemed in control, with its goalie punching a ball away from the net with four measly minutes to play.
Once the scoreboard froze at two minutes, and we all entered the twilight zone that is soccer, where the ref, and only the ref, really knows how much time is left to play, Wood might have gotten a little tense on the sideline.
But, if a sweat drop or two burrowed down deep into his collar, he hid it well, as if he knew a miracle was coming.
And that miracle was provided by a hero named Andrew Williams.
Laughing at pressure, he launched a corner kick which went airborne, caught a ride on a passing burst of wind, and somehow, against all odds, buried itself into the corner of the net a moment before the final whistle.
Cue the bedlam.
Cue Williams being beat within an inch of his life by his ecstatic teammates.
Cue an explosion of cheers echoing across the windy prairie.
Meanwhile Wood merely nodded, maybe dipping his head an inch or three, a soccer sage trying hard to project an image of utter calm.
That sent the game to overtime, or, in this case, two five-minute extra periods, both of which failed to see a “golden goal” be launched.
Steller and Wilson both had strong looks at the net, but there was no way this thing was ending anywhere short of a shoot-out.
As in that most-beloved, or most-loathed, of events, in which the teams alternate players taking “kicks from the mark” at a goalie who has .00002 of a second to make a decision on which way to go.
It prevents ties, which we can all get behind … but is a stake through the heart of the team which loses, as luck often trumps skill.
“Worst way to end a game … EVER,” Wood said.
And remember, his team won.
Xavier Murdy, Tony Garcia, and Williams each netted their shots, leaving the shootout at 3-3, before the Lopez goalie blocked Alex Murdy’s attempt up and over the net to give the visitors the edge.
When the Lobos pushed the margin to 4-3, with Coupeville down to its final man, things looked as bleak as the blurry skies above.
But this is where it’s good to know how the weather works on the prairie.
Wood instructed his players to keep their shots on the ground, where the breeze could do the least damage, and they listened.
Steller drilled the snot out of the ball, sending it deep into the bottom right corner of the net, and we were at 4-4 with the last Lopez shooter walking to the line.
The Lobo lined up his shot, connected, and foolishly dared to go against Mother Nature, which bit him right in the butt.
Launching an airborne shot, the shooter could only watch in horror as the wind-aided ball went high and far, and kept going, clearing the football goalposts and coming down somewhere around the highway.
Given a reprieve, with the shootout sent to a sixth player, the Wolves closed in style.
Guay pocketed his shot, putting CHS up 5-4, then strolled back to the waiting high-fives and backslaps.
At which point Lopez made it two high, hard, and fly to the moon attempts in a row, its final gasp at glory making the same mistake of leaving the ground, and never coming back down.
Cue some more bedlam, as the Wolves and their fans celebrated and the wind did its own swirly, invisible victory dance.
Like the ancestors said — know the wind, respect the wind, and win with the wind.
Code of the prairie athlete.
Cue the celebration.
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