With less than a minute remaining Saturday afternoon, the outlook was bleak for Columbus East in its Hoosier Hills Conference battle against visiting New Albany.
The Olympians were trailing the Bulldogs 2-1 and had pulled goalie Zach Roberts to the offensive half of the field for one last attack. After a New Albany foul gave East a free kick at midfield, it was Roberts who sent the ball in toward the box.
From there, the Olympians drew another foul, setting up its second free kick, this time from 19 yards out with just 33 seconds remaining. Eric Stiles took advantage of the opportunity, squeezing his kick into the left side of the net, allowing East to escape with a 2-2 tie.
“At first, I was going to try to curve the ball around the right side of the wall, but as Marcus (Zaspel) ran by, they rushed at me because they thought he was going to kick it, so I saw a gap in the rush and was able to kick it through there,” Stiles said.
The match was extremely physical, as the teams drew a combined seven yellow cards and two red cards. The Olympians were handed a red card in the 57th minute, putting them a man down.
The Bulldogs (6-4-2, 2-2-2) were able to take advantage just nine minutes later when Luis Lopez found the net in the 66th minute to give them a 2-1 lead. From there, East was able to keep New Albany off the board, allowing it to tie the game with Stiles’ dramatic goal.
The first half also played to a draw. Although the Bulldogs were awarded a penalty kick in the 16th minute, Roberts stymied that opportunity with an outstanding save, one of his four on the afternoon, to keep the game scoreless. However, in the 24th minute, Lopez found just enough room off of a corner kick to sneak one past Roberts to give the visitors a 1-0 lead.
Five minutes later, the Olympians (6-6-1, 3-2-1) were able to even the score on Stiles’ first goal of the contest. A free kick from Chris Quisenberry into the box found the head of Stiles, who sent it toward the goal. The New Albany keeper was unable to control the ball, and Stiles put it in off of the deflection to tie the score at 1-1.
“New Albany plays physically,” East coach Brad Barber said. It is good for us to play physical soccer to get ready for sectional. I think when we went down a player, we continued to compete, and that allowed us to get a goal to tie the game. We played well at the beginning and the end of the game. We lost our way a bit in the middle, so we need to work on playing 80 minutes a game.”
