Cooper's OT goal ends 5-match skid
Kyle Cooper's 2nd goal the winner in a 4-3 2OT victory.
“That could have been our season right there.”
So said Mullen coach Matthew Guglielmo on a cold, wet and dark Thursday after the Mustangs blew a two goal lead in regulation and needed to go into a second overtime to beat Smoky Hill in Aurora 4-3 in a Centennial League match.
Junior Kyle Cooper scored the second of his two goals midway through the second extra session to officially snap a five-match losing streak by the Mustangs, help them feel better about their Class 4A playoff chances (they were hovering near the bottom of the 32-team outlay of hopefuls) and lift some spirits after a dreary stretch.
The Mustangs improved to 7-6 overall and landed their first league victory in six tries. They hadn’t won since league play began and squandered leads against multiple teams, just as they did on Thursday against the 5A Buffaloes (2-12, 1-5) who came alive late.
Mullen led 3-1 into the closing minutes, only to give up two goals and force extra play. And it should consider itself lucky, Guglielimo said, because in extra play Smoky Hill hit the crossbar with a header from point-blank range early and the ensuing rebound was chipped barely over the bar.
A couple of minutes later, Patrick Rooney had the ball out front, passed to the right, hit a Buffs player, it came off Cole Dempsey and Cooper got one past the far post.
“We really shouldn’t have been in overtime in the first place, but we got the result we wanted,” Cooper said.
Rooney, who had scored earlier, said, “we got up early, so it got really challenging and we were sitting back, but we changed it for overtime … this was very important for us.”
Cooper and Eli Kerschen also scored in regular time, and Kerschen, Daniel Dominguez and Patrick Keeley added assists. Uriel Diaz also had his hands full late in goal.
“We had to have this,” Guglielmo said. “I have to fix something because we cannot maintain our leads. We get leads against teams that are quality and we can’t hold them ... I’ll have to go over this over the weekend and see what we need to do. We still have two tough games.”
The Mustangs will wrap up league play on Tuesday, Oct. 16, 4:30 p.m., against Overland, and complete their regular season at Skyline in Longmont on Friday, Oct. 19, 3:30 p.m.
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