Columbus boys’ soccer team seeks first state championship in over a decade

With their season appearing to have been over last week, the Columbus boys’ soccer team has definitely taken advantage of its second chance.

The Explorers, who scored a controversial goal in the final seconds of the second overtime to send their Region 4-7A final against Cypress Bay to penalty kicks and then went on to win, would need no such miracles on Tuesday afternoon.

Entering the state final four as the No. 2 seed, Columbus basically was in control of No. 3 Windemere from the opening whistle to the final zeroes on the clock and soundly defeated the Wolverines 4-1 in a Class 7A state semifinal at Spec Martin Stadium.

With their only other state final four appearance having resulted in the program’s lone state title in 2014, the Explorers (17-4-5) will go for a second championship on Wednesday night at 7 when they take on No. 1 seed Palm Harbor University. PHU defeated Sanford Seminole 3-1 in the other semifinal.

After giving up an own-goal in the first overtime against Cypress Bay, the Explorers might’ve thought their season had ended when the clock ran out in the second OT.

But, much to the shock of the Cypress Bay bench, the center official allowed play to go on with approximately two minutes of extra stoppage time. With the whistle about to blow, Sebastian Tamargo scored off a set piece corner kick tying the game at three.

Less than 10 seconds later, the whistle sounded sending the game to penalty kicks and new life for Columbus following the 3-1 PK win.

On Tuesday, Jorge Gonzalez-Tello led the way for the Explorers as he scored a pair of goals while Benjamin Ochoa and Pax Cortizas scored the other two. With the game well in hand, Windemere scored a “window-dressing” goal by William Silva Fillio with 3:35 left to make it 3-1 before Cortizas closed out the scoring with his goal with 1:54 left.

Gonzalez-Tello got his team a lead it would never give up when he scored in the game’s 18th minute when teammate Jayden Glasper broke loose down the right side to start an odd man two-on-one break. He then found Gonzalez-Tello open in the middle and sent a perfect crossing pass. Gonzalez-Tello easily beat Windemere goalkeeper Carter Richmond to the ball and knocked it into the bottom left corner of the net.

“We work on that play a lot, and he did a nice job of finding me and made a nice pass,” Gonzalez-Tello said. “We wanted to come in here today and really make a statement and we did that. It’s all about pure hard work, effort and just sticking to your game plan. Now we’re one win away.”

Columbus seized firm control of the game just 90 seconds into the second half when Benjamin Ochoa beat his defender on the right side, turned the corner and knocked it past Richmond to make it 2-0.

“I thought we might’ve dropped the level a little bit in the first half after that first goal and I think going into halftime really helped us,” Columbus coach Kameron Clark said. “We shook it all out of us in the locker room and managed to get re-focused for the second half. Then we got the early goal a minute in and were good to go after that as we pretty much controlled things.”

When Windermere’s Luke Anthony fouled Devin Zibinden just inside the penalty box, Gonzalez-Tello converted the PK. Even though there were still 31 minutes of soccer left, the Explorers knew who was moving on to the championship game.

“Once I hit that PK, I knew we were moving on,” Gonzalez-Tello said. “No way were we going to let something like that slip away.”

When asked about the new life his team got following the Cypress Bay win, Gonzalez-Tello talked about what they learned from that game.

“That Cypress game was really big for us because after giving up the own-goal in overtime, a lot of other teams would’ve put their heads down and tossed it in,” he said. “But we kept working and grinding and pushing. We got that late goal and now we have the mentality of even if we fall behind by one or two goals, we know we have the ability to fight back. Fortunately we didn’t have to worry about that today.”

Said Clark when asked the same question: “You always want to think you have a group that can compete for a state championship. However, it takes a good group of hard workers and maybe a little bit of luck along the way. One of the things this group of guys, did not do when they got scored on in overtime was put their heads down. That grit got us through that game and got us up here. Hopefully we can finish it off tomorrow night.”