Josh Hughes of Starr's Mill scored the game’s only goal about three minutes into the first overtime period amid traffic and controversy to lift the Panthers to a 1-0 victory against Lakeside-DeKalb in the Class AAAA boys soccer semifinals Tuesday night at Hallford Stadium.
A Lakeside defender appeared to punch the ball out of the goal, but the play already had been ruled a goal. The confusion was such that the players and coaches on the Starr’s Mill bench did not know who scored the goal, even as the final second of overtime ticked off the clock.
“The goalkeeper came up to grab it, and I guess he kinda bobbled it,” Hughes said. “I just happened to be standing there, and I put my foot down and netted it.
“As the ball was going in the goal, a kid grabbed it with his hand and threw it, and the controversy was whether the ball was already in the goal when he did it. Had it not been they would have given us a penalty kick, but they deemed it a goal, and we won the game 1-0.”
The victory moved second-ranked Starr’s Mill (18-3-2) into Friday’s championship game against McIntosh or Marist. Starr’s Mill will seek its second title in school history and the first since winning Class AAA in 2000.
Third-ranked Lakeside, which had won nine consecutive games, ends its season at 15-3. Lakeside won the Class AAAA championship in 2008 and lost in the semifinals against Marist last year.
“I’m on cloud nine,” Starr’s Mill coach Mike Hanie said. “This is great stuff. We’re going to state. It’s been a while. We haven’t been to the final since 2004, so this is big for us to go.”
Scoring chances were limited throughout regulation. Lakeside had perhaps its best opportunity of the night less than four minutes into the game when Nikos Papanikolopoulos had a shot from the right side that missed just wide to the left. It was at the same point of the game at which he scored the game’s only goal in the Vikings’ 1-0 victory against Upson-Lee in the quarterfinals.
Lakeside also had a couple of desperation tries in the second overtime period, but Panthers goalkeeper Matt Hubbard came through to preserve the shutout.
“It ain’t no fun to lose, everybody knows that,” Lakeside senior captain Jack Abbott said. “The guys never gave up. I said last week when we beat Upson-Lee that it was about heart. We took our heart out there on the field, but it didn’t play out for us today. Starr’s Mill had a solid team. We had our chances, but sometimes it doesn’t work like that."
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