The finish was much better than the start Monday for the Dowagiac boys soccer team in its Wolverine Conference match against Edwardsburg.

The Chieftains, who allowed a goal 33 seconds into the match, rallied and eventually beat the Eddies in a shootout, 3-2.

Dowagiac made all four its shots in the shootout, while Edwardsburg had two of its five shots stopped by Dowagiac goalie Paul Lamphere.

“The key is if everyone makes their shot you have a great shot of winning because somebody will usually make amistake,” Dowagiac coach Mike Williams said. “It wasn’t us (making a mistake). It’s our second shootout (this year) and we’ve won both of them.”

In the shootout for the Chieftains, Jorge Ruiz, Joey Pasternak, Allan Scherer and Adrian Martinez were successful.

Edwardsburg got shootout goals from Alan Lopez, Ben Getz and Lukas Nylund.

Edwardsburg coach Sean Jesse was uncomfortable about his team’s chances entering the shootout.

“We’ve struggled with PK’s (penalty kicks) all year,” Jesse said. “We’ve made only one all year and missed four or five.

This is the second straight PK shootout we’ve had and we lost the first one too (a 2-1 loss to Berrien Springs). I think that weighs on their heads and seeing that we haven’t had success with them. They’re young men and and it happens.”

Edwardsburg tied the match at 2 with 3:08 left in regulation when Tyler Treat scored from five yards. The Eddies go off two more shots in the final 1:30 with one going wide left and another being stopped by Lamphere.

“We went into overtime with momentum,” Jesse said. “We scored late (in regulation) after having a ton of pressure. We clearly had a ton of energy. (Dowagiac) looked tired, but we struggled possessing the ball today. They play enough kick ball that it’s tough to build any rhythm.”

Dowagiac owned a 6-5 edge on shots in the two overtimes. In the first overtime, the Chieftains had a shot from five yards by Martinez hit the crossbar. In the second overtime, Martinez had a breakaway from 10 yards go wide right.

“We shouldn’t have been in the shootout,” Williams said. “We had a lot of opportunities and 1-on-1’s that we didn’t finish. (Martinez) has done a great job this year. He’s just been unlucky. We’ve lost a lot of close games this year. We’re young and our bench is not deep.”

Edwardsburg jumped out to a 1-0 lead 33 seconds into the match when Lopez scored from five yards.

“What a looked like was the Berrien Springs game all over again,” Williams said. “In the first minute, we just sat back and watched somebody run the ball down into our goal instead of playing. It was our midfielder’s mark. He didn’t cover back.”

Lopez’s goal was the lone score in the first half. Edwardsburg owned a 13-6 shots on goal advantage over the first 40 minutes.

“To a certain extent we let off the gas a little bit,” Jesse said. “Scoring early can do that to you.”
Dowagiac tied the match at 1 with 15:19 left in the second half when Jose Lopez scored from five yards.

About two minutes later, Dowagiac took a 2-1 lead on Martinez’s penalty kick.

“The call was that our goalie ran into their player,” Jesse said. “The goalie is allowed to go after the ball. I hate to see anyone get hit, but a goalie is allowed to go after the ball. I disagree with the call.”

Both teams had 11 shots in the second half.

“We got behind and then we started to play,” Williams said.    Both goalies played well as Lamphere finished with 14 saves for Dowagiac, while Patrick Harvey had 13 stops for Edwardsburg.