Published: October 11, 2008 11:12 pm         

North wins soccer sectional in shootout

TERRE HAUTE — How evenly matched are Terre Haute North and Terre Haute South in boys high school soccer this season?

Well, they played to a 1-1 tie in the regular season Sept. 17 on the Patriots’ field.

Then they met for the Terre Haute North Sectional championship Saturday night. After 80 minutes of regulation and two seven-minute overtimes, they were tied 0-0.

That forced one round of five penalty kicks. Kicking against the opponent’s goalkeeper from 12 yards out, each team converted all five.

Still tied (insert sighing sound here).

So let’s get this straight. After 174 minutes of normal soccer — covering two matches — and one round of penalty kicks, these teams still couldn’t determine which one is better.

Finally, after South’s Josh Pigg and North’s Wade Bush took turns finding the net to open the sudden-death second round of penalty kicks, South’s Ray Bolk fired his PK over the crossbar and North’s Ben Ramseier kicked a grounder to the right and out of goalie Jordan Welsh’s reach. That gave the Patriots a 7-6 victory and the right to advance to Wednesday’s regional at North against the Edgewood Sectional winner.

But there’s a controversial twist to how Saturday’s title match ended.

Ramseier originally missed his PK attempt, as Welsh lunged to his left to smother it.

Then the referees disallowed the save, giving Ramseier a second opportunity. One of them explained to the Tribune-Star later that Welsh had stepped across the goalkeeper’s line before Ramseier kicked the ball, which is a violation.

When Ramseier tried for the second time, he booted it into the net.

“It was a bad PK in the first place,” Ramseier said after the Patriots’ postgame celebration. “I’m thanking God for the second try, honestly.”

“You don’t get many second chances in life,” North coach John Welch pointed out, “and Ben took advantage of it.”

Obviously disappointed, South coach Eric Graves didn’t want to criticize the referees’ decision to give Ramseier what amounted to a do-over.

“I have coaching vision [from the sideline],” he admitted, “so that’s not how it happened to me.”

South went first in each round of penalty kicks, with Tony Garcia, Austin Monte, Allen Keegan, Nathan Wheeler and Zach Pigg tallying in the first round against North goalie Adam Shamsaie. North’s first-round scorers, in order, were Luke Lakstins, Alex Walter, Cameron Victor, Parker Victor and Julian Shamsaie.

So one more time, how evenly matched are these teams anyway?

“Looks like shot for shot almost,” Graves answered. “They just got one up on us.”

“You can’t get any closer than that,” Welch said. “Eric Graves is doing a great job at South and they have some great players.”

In semifinal matches played earlier Saturday, North blanked winless South Vermillion 4-0 after managing only goal in the first half and South shut out West Vigo 3-0.

“We had a slow start,” Welch acknowledged. “We talked Friday about South Vermillion possibly packing it in and playing a defensive game. Even knowing that, we still had a little trouble. Their keeper [Zack Naylor] did a good job.”

Speaking for South Vermillion was assistant coach Nathan Bogetto, who filled in for head coach Rob Grabill, who could not be there because he had been red-carded by referees during the Wildcats’ previous match.

“We played mostly defense,” Bogetto admitted. “We held the whole team back on defense.”

That ended South Vermillion’s season at 0-12.

“We’re going to try to get more players out [for the team] next year,” Bogetto mentioned.

North’s goals came from Walter in the first half and Nate Low, Parker Victor (on a corner kick) and Ricky Pemberton in the second half.

In the second semifinal, South got goals from Josh Pigg (two) and Nick Henderson in moving on to the championship match.

“I think it was a good warmup for our offense,” Graves said. “They stuck to the plan.

“On Josh’s second goal [a scissor kick from about 10 yards out], it ended up ricocheting off a defender and he did what he had to do to get it in the goal.”

For West Vigo, coach Juan Montanez praised the effort that his players showed under less-than-perfect circumstances.

“The first half was close,” he said. “Before the game, we had a player sick [but still ended up playing]. During the game, we had four starters who got injured or started cramping. It was bad luck for us and it made me have to tinker my lineup.”

The Vikings finished 6-7-1 in 2008.

“We only won one game last season, so I’m very happy and very proud of the guys for this season,” Montanez reflected. “We made a lot of improvements, even though we have a really young team. We’re losing our goalkeeper [senior Sean Burton] next season, but we’re basically keeping the nucleus of our team. I think next year we’ll be even more competitive.”



Semifinal matches

South Vermillion 0 0 — 0

Terre Haute North 1 3 — 4

North goals — Alex Walter (Julian Shamsaie) 4:03 1H, Nate Low (Walter) 39:43 2H, Parker Victor (corner kick) 36:56 2H, Ricky Pemberton (Clayton Underwood) 5:34 2H.



West Vigo 0 0 — 0

Terre Haute South 1 2 — 3

South goals — Josh Pigg (Josh Sullivan) 1H, Nick Henderson (Ian Cook) 2H, Pigg (Henderson) 2H.



Championship match

Terre Haute South 0 0 0 0 5 1 — 6

Terre Haute North 0 0 0 0 5 2 — 7

All goals were penalty kicks

South goals — Tony Garcia 1OT, Austin Monte 1OT, Allen Keegan 1OT, Nathan Wheeler 1OT, Zach Pigg 1OT, Josh Pigg 2OT.

North goals — Luke Lakstins 1OT, Alex Walter 1OT, Cameron Victor 1OT, Parker Victor 1OT, Julian Shamsaie 1OT, Wade Bush 2OT, Ben Ramseier 2OT.

Next — North (9-7-2) will play the Edgewood Sectional winner in the regional at 7 p.m. Wednesday at North. South bowed out at 10-9-1. West Vigo concluded its season at 6-7-1. South Vermillion ended up 0-12.