Ephrata beats Othello in OT for CWAC road win

OTHELLO — Othello did everything but finish. Ephrata did just enough to win and both teams walked away from Thursday night’s CWAC soccer match wondering what the heck just happened?

The Tigers (5-5-1, 2-3 CWAC) scored with 20 seconds remaining in regulation when Ezequiel Sandoval bombed a free kick into the box that bounced loose and Victor Sanchez poked it in 20 ticks before time ran out. Ephrata striker Luis Rodriguez pushed up the far sideline all the way into the box, sent the crosser to the far post and Arbey Guerrero scored in the 83rd minute for the game-winner to win 2-1 in overtime.

“We know we’re at the time of the season where we just have to play all 80 minutes. It’s not always going to look the prettiest,” Ephrata coach Ivan Gary said. “But if we can work hard and stick together, we can be the winner at the end. Sometimes is just better to be lucky.”

Othello coach Bernie Garza’s team was coming off a four-goal scoring production against Selah earlier in the week. But Thursday night was a different story. They pushed up and challenged Tiger goalkeeper Andres Mendoza, but only scored the one goal on a Reese Jones header 30 seconds into the second half.

“We outplayed and outscored Selah (on Tuesday). Today we did everything but finish,” Garza said. “They won, but they didn’t do anything to earn it.”

It goes back to closure and Othello (7-3, 2-3 CWAC) let Ephrata hang around, despite turning up the heat in the second half after the Jones score. Jones had an open goal opportunity in the first half when Mendoza charged and got caught in no-man’s land, but the Husky striker tried to steer it in and ended up going wide.

Mendoza made a nice save in the second half when Frankie Ramos put a point-blank laser from the left wing on the near post and the Tiger senior punched it away with both hands. Mendoza finished with seven saves and Huskies goaltender Jose Gomez had five.

For all the woulda-coulda-shoulda’s in soccer, the Tigers, who hadn’t beaten Othello in the past 12 years until this season, pulled off the equivalent of football’s Hail Mary when in counted.

Sandoval sent the free kick 40 yards into the Husky box and Gomez got caught up in the wash of bodies out front. Sanchez was in the right place at the right time and tied the match when the loose ball ended up at his feet.

In fact, the game winner was a little of the same. Guerrero saw Rodriguez break free and converged on the goal from the far side.

“Luis broke off the wing and put it on the far post. I was in position,” Guerrero said. “Tonight was a matter of hard work and not giving up. That goal at the end of regulation gave us hope and we went out and finished in overtime.”

Grandview (5-5, 4-1 CWAC) beat Prosser to remain atop the conference standings. Both Othello and Ephrata have some work to do to make a move. The Huskies are at Quincy on Saturday and the Tigers are at Wapato.

Score by halves

Ephrata 0 1 1 - 2

Othello 0 1 0 - 1

Scoring summary

O - Reese Jones (unassisted), 40:30

E - Victor Sanchez (Ezequel Sandoval), 79:40

E - Arbey Guerrero (Luis Rodríguez), 83:20