Boys soccer: Metea Valley stays alive with OT win

Metea Valley needed to rally against Oswego on Tuesday night to send the Class 3A Batavia regional semifinal to overtime after surrendering a two-goal lead nearly midway through the game.

The Mustangs used the momentum of Colin Bastianoni's third goal of the game, and most timely one, to draw even and Daniel Wilkinson delivered the game-winner in the first overtime as Metea Valley survived Oswego in a 4-3 thriller.

"(Oswego) was a great side and we knew coming into this game it was gong to be a challenge, but I'm so proud of everyone at Metea," Bastianoni said. "We want it more than everyone else and knew we would have to come out strong and after getting those two goals we needed to keep pushing, because (Oswego) scores a lot of goals and has great defenders so we had to get those other two goals."

Daniel Avila's goal with 4:36 left in the first half was huge for the Panthers as it came only a little more than a minute after Bastianoni's PK had given the Mustangs a 2-0 lead.

Avila would tie the game early in the second half on a PK of his own with 31:08 still to play and suddenly things were heating up.

Oswego (12-10-3) then took its first and only lead of the game at 3-2 with 14:03 left when Johnny Rodriguez was able to give the Panthers three consecutive goals.

"We just kept calm trying do our game and we obviously got three goals to go up," Panthers coach Gaspar Arias said. "We were prepared but at the end with the red card and playing a man down, it affected the concentration of these guys and affected our game a little bit."

Metea Valley (11-7-2) controlled both overtimes, but only needed the Wilkinson goal, a 25-yard strike with 3:28 remaining, in the first overtime to advance to Friday's regional final against Oswego East.

"We were possessing and knew we wanted to take chances; we had been doing that all game," Wilkinson said. "Riley (McCann) set me up with the right pass at the right time. I just had space and took the shot and it went in. I honestly didn't think it was going to go in, but the power proved to be enough."