Nolan golden for Barrington
Ryan Nolan grabbed the glory in an instant from his golden right boot Thursday night.
The Barrington senior smashed home a stunning second overtime strike to lift the Broncos to an exciting 4-3 victory over Palatine and a Class AA sectional soccer title before a packed house in Lake Zurich.
The win advanced the top-seeded Broncos (21-2-0) into Monday's 7 p.m. supersectional at Benedictine University in Lisle against Libertyville, which beat Carmel 1-0 in overtime.
Nolan found the back of the net at 94 minutes with a one-timer to elude a diving Pirates keeper Ben Calvopina and end a superb match between the two long-time Mid-Suburban League rivals. Barrington won the first meeting 4-2.
"We've given up just 16 goals this season, and (Palatine) scored 5 of them against us," said a relieved Barrington coach Scott Steib, whose club is just one victory away from its first Elite Eight appearance since 2002.
As a piece of footballing theater, the match included a hat trick by Palatine striker Haris Haskovic, one a superb 25-yard free-kick to draw his club even just after intermission, a spectacular free-kick strike from Barrington's Brian Bernal to make it 2-0 early, eight yellow card bookings, and a bright full moon in the sky to stir up a memorable sectional final.
"Right now, I don't really care if it was 1-0, 2-1 or an OT win like we earned," Steib said after the school's fifth sectional title, "it just doesn't matter because we survived against a terrific opponent and we're playing on Monday with a chance to advance to the state tournament."
The Broncos early effort stunned the Pirates (16-9) when Ata Ozbay finished a wonderful flick from teammate Ryan Mangone off a Francesco Furio serve from the left side to open the scoring at five minutes.
Two minutes later, Bernal screamed a driving free-kick blast into the upper right corner from 35 yards that had so much pace, it still found the net despite Calvopina reaching and partially touching the shot with his glove.
"We've made a habit of scoring first during the post-season, and making it a goal of ours to keep our opponent to 1 goal or less," said Palatine coach Willie Filian. "To give up three, yet still be in this match is a credit to our entire team."
The Pirates were likely thrown a lifeline at 20 minutes when Mangone rattled the woodwork in close on what looked like a sure thing.
The Pirates absorbed constant pressure and began to mount its comeback when Haskovic collected a Matt Marturano through ball and fired in from 20 yards on the right side.
The goal lifted the spirits of the Palatine faithful, but were dashed just moments before intermission when Furio elevated far above his markers to head in another well-paced Bernal dead-ball.
"We knew Palatine wasn't going to go away, just as they did the first time we played them," said Barrington defender Matt Beightol, who got the helper on Nolan's game-winner on a long throw.
Beightol and his mates watched the Pirates reply after the break with a series of lightning raids. The first came on the trademark Haskovic long-range free-kick at 43 minutes, followed by the equalizer in the 47th minute to turn the Broncos' side sour and the Pirates' sweet.
The final 15 minutes of regulation saw the Broncos' go closer than its opponent, but never of any quality to send this match into the first of potentially four 10-minute sudden-death periods.
Once there, the Broncos had the better run of things until Nolan put his side firmly into next week's supersectional.
"I (saw) Francesco redirect Matt's throw and just got myself into position (in close) to get my shot off," said Nolan.
"We used (up) so much energy to get back into the match," said Filian. "Credit Barrington for getting the momentum back after we got even and having enough at the end to get that (one) in for the win."