South Broward boys earn first state soccer title with win in 2 overtimes
In between the first and second overtimes, Hollywood South Broward coach Lionel Brown gathered his players together to tell them one thing.
“There will be NO penalty kicks,” yelled Brown. “These next 10 minutes are about to be the greatest 10 minutes of your lives.” Brown had it nailed.
Still locked in a scoreless tie after 90 minutes of soccer, the Bulldogs indeed made it their 10 greatest minutes.
When senior forward Willie Perdomo scored with 6:24 left in the second OT, the Bulldogs then played great defense and hung on for a dramatic 1-0 double overtime win over defending state champion Viera in the Class 6A state championship game on Saturday afternoon at Spec Martin Stadium.
The win was the first state title in program history and the first state title of any kind for the school since the girls basketball team did it in 2008. In addition, perhaps the soccer gods were looking out for Brown on this day as it healed the wounds of a bitter double OT loss to Niceville in the state final four years ago on the very same field.
“This is awesome, just unbelievable,” Brown said. “We’ve worked so hard for this, I told these boys all year long, we’re the best team. I believed that, the only thing is we need to show everybody else that. It’s one thing what I believe and what we display as a team. It’s another to actually get there, prove it to everybody else and ultimately claim the prize. Today we did exactly that.”
After a more-or-less evenly played first half, Brown watched his players take control of the game in the second half, dominating time of possession and creating quality scoring chances. The best of those chances came just before the second half water break when Perdomo knifed a perfect ball from the right side down toward the bottom left side of the net that Sebastian Ibañez reached out with his right foot to knock in and missed the ball by inches.
With 12 minutes left, the Bulldogs (20-1-3) lost their best player, at least temporarily when Lucas Costa, on a violent collision with Alden Gates (who got a yellow card) suffered a severe laceration to his head and was forced to leave the game. But when overtime started, there was Costa, courageously trudging back out on to the field with a bandage around his head.
With four minutes left in the first overtime, it looked like he would be the hero as Costa found himself in traffic in front of the net with an open shot. When he fired it, Viera keeper
Alvey Kaufman made the save. But the ball bounced right back to Costa who got another point blank shot that went to the left of the left post by inches.
But after Brown’s speech in between overtimes, Costa would figure prominently in the game-winning goal when he tracked down a ball in the bottom left corner and, after bobbing and weaving his way around Viera defenders, centered a pass toward the net. With one of his own defenders in the way, Kaufman could not field the ball cleanly and it was loose in front. Perdomo got there before anybody else and knocked it in.
“I saw Lucas running down the left side and when he came free in the corner, I knew the ball was coming in,” Perdomo said. “We worked on these kinds of plays all week in practice and thankfully I was there and managed to get to the ball first. It was a great feeling but we knew we still had six minutes left and had to keep playing. Then when that clock hit zeroes, I couldn’t wait to go crazy with teammates. What a moment for all of us. I feel like I’m on top of the world right now. You couldn’t dream this up any better.”
Viera did what it could to apply pressure over the final six minutes but the Hawks appeared exhausted from the mid-afternoon heat as Bulldogs’ keeper Ivan Fernandez really never got challenged.