SPENCER— The 100 minutes of soccer Salisbury and West Rowan played under the unrelenting sun Wednesday was bad enough.
Hornet Daniel Butner made sure, to his teammates’ delight, that it wasn’t 110 minutes.
Butner blasted home a goal in the ninth minute of the second 10-minute overtime period to give Salisbury a 4-3 victory over the Falcons. His score put the Hornets in the Rowan County Soccer Tournament final tonight and — perhaps just as big — prevented two more five-minute OT periods from being played.
“Both fuel tanks were running dry,”Salisbury coach Tom Sexton said. “Daniel only had a little bit left. He makes one more run and he gets it done.
“It was pretty epic,”Sexton added. “West brought everything.”
Sexton called the match one of the greatest in the tournament’s nine-year history. His team, one of the favorites in the 2Aranks in the state, trailed 2-0 and 3-1 before scoring twice late in the second half and pulling out the win in the extra periods.
“It was inevitable,”Falcons coach Rob Sweet said. “They’d come back — it’s Salisbury. I just hoped we could hold on.”
West stunned the large crowd at North Rowan High by tallying the game’s first goal. After Salisbury missed on a number of early chances, Falcon junior Michael Wetter overpowered Hornet sweeper Jeremy Rehders for the ball near midfield. As Wetter followed the ball toward the goal, he realized he was all alone —none of the other defenders got back on the play and Wetter drove a shot into the net past a helpless Seth Ruhlman for the lead in the 28th minute.
West junior goalkeeper Tyler Parker preserved the shutout through halftime despite constant pressure from the Hornets. Then, the unthinkable happened:West scored again just five minutes into the second half.
Senior Andrew Belk had the ball some 15 yards above the box when he noticed that the Hornet defense wasn’t coming to get him. So he lined up a shot, nailed a line drive and watched it arc high over Ruhlman into the back of the net.
The Hornets finally scored when Butner sent a low corner kick into the goal box that got kicked around a while before Alex Beaver put it home in the 53rd minute. Ten minutes later, West regained its two-goal edge when Wetter pounced on a ball that Ruhlman dove for, knocked it loose and scored.
West was happy, but wary.
“Sweet told us to stay strong because they’d come back,”Wetter said. “They had opportunities to score and they scored.”
In the 71st minute, Beaver beat two Falcon defenders down the field on a long run and had an easy shot past Parker to pull within 3-2.
Two minutes later, West tried to clear a loose ball that found its way back to Butner. He fired a shot into the upper right corner that glanced too high off Parker’s finger tips, and the game was tied.
“Just when you thought the dam had broken, a little bit of character came through from our leaders,”Sexton said. “Alex finishes twice and Butner bombs one when we absolutely, positively have to have it.”
The exertion of the first 80 minutes began taking its toll in overtime, as several players came out with cramps. The once-frenzied pace became a stop-and-go affair, with players conserving their energy as much as possible.
“This is why we run all preseason,”Wetter said. “We had been that tired before, doing laps after practice. We knew what it would be like, but it was still hard.”
The Falcons had a few chances in the extra periods but Ruhlman came up with the saves. Parker turned away several Salisbury runs until the last one. Butner’s long throw-in bounced around in front of the goal, then came back out to him on the right side. From a tough angle, he lined up a cannon shot through traffic that deflected into the net.
“I didn’t think about it,”Butner said. “I just struck it as hard as I could. I couldn’t believe it went in.”
“Tyler had a great game,”added Sweet. “I think he was partially screened and didn’t catch it until the last minute. It hit off of him and went in.”
After a night of “fluids, fluids, fluids,”as instructed by Sexton, Salisbury must regroup in time for tonight’s showdown against South.
West, agonizingly enough, will have to do the same — at 5 p.m., and in the consolation game.
“It was there for us to take,”Wetter said. “It’s as simple as that.”
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NOTES: Sexton hailed freshmen Drew Griffith and Grant Ruhlman, along with senior Bryan Goodnight and junior Daniel Wallace, as making the difference in the final 20 minutes. … If the score had remained tied after the final two overtimes, penalty kicks would’ve been needed.
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Contact Steve Hanf at 704-797-4287 or shanf@salisburypost.com
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