Syrio’s penalty kick in the final minutes lifts the Tiger soccer team to the district title game
In a back-and-forth contest, the top-seeded Cowley College men’s soccer team got a goal from sophomore Renan Syrio with two minutes remaining in a 4-3 victory over fourth-seeded Garden City in Wednesday’s Plains District Tournament game in Arkansas City, KS.
The victory improves Cowley's record to 13-1-1 on the season and advances the Tigers to Saturday's District title game against second-seeded Barton County (16-3-2) on Saturday at 4:30 p.m. in Kansas City, KS.
Cowley head coach Marcos Ribeiro was happy the team got the win despite not playing its best.
"At the end of the day, the win was what mattered the most, but if we want to go on Saturday and win against Barton, we need to perform much better," Ribeiro said. "
Cowley rallied from an early mistake in the back half of the field that led to a goal by Garden City's Samuel Murcia when Jin Tokishi answered with his first goal of the season from an assist by Yushin Nakano just over a minute later. Neither team would score again in the first half as the teams went into halftime tied 1-1.
The goals came fast and furious in the second half with Cowley's Kanta Ishii scoring his 12th goal of the season off an assist from Shuto Sasaki six and a half minutes into the second half to put the Tigers in front 2-1. However, four minutes later, the Broncbusters tied the game at 2-2 on a goal by Adrian Campbell.
With just under 32 minutes remaining, the teams would exchange goals within 24 seconds of each other, with Garden City's Mateo Prigent putting the Broncbusters ahead 3-2 before Cowley's Leonardo Leitao tied the game at 3-3 off an assist from Rikito Takeuchi. The goal for Leitao was his fifth of the season.
The game would remain tied until Garden City was called for a penalty in the box with two minutes left. Syrio calmly stepped up and fired the shot into the corner of the net to lift the Tigers to the 4-3 win. The goal for Syrio was his ninth of the year.
Garden City finishes its season with a record of 11-6-4.
The three goals were the most allowed by the Tigers in a game this season.
While advancing to play Barton on Saturday, Ribeiro knows Cowley will need to be at the top of its game as the teams split a pair of games in the regular season.
"Since the beginning of the season, we've talked about minimizing the mistakes, which we've done well all year long, but against Garden City, it was a little different," Ribeiro said. "I know we have everything that it takes to go there and win, it's just about raising our level and not losing concentration."