BERTHOUD — Eighty minutes weren’t enough to decide a winner in Thursday night’s Class 3A first-round girls soccer playoff game between Berthoud and Manitou Springs at Max Marr Stadium.
The Spartans needed only 10 minutes of extra time to do so.
Freshman Mika Okiyama’s golden goal with five minutes left in the first overtime period gave the Spartans what is believed to be the first playoff victory in program history, 2-1 over the Mustangs.
Berthoud, the No. 14 seed, will play at No. 3 Colorado Academy at 10 a.m. Saturday in the second round.
“It’s very exciting,” first-year Berthoud head coach Kylee Dunham said. “I’m very proud of these girls who have come a really long way from the beginning of the season, and it’s just been nonstop improvement every single week, nonstop history being made, so it’s very exciting.”
With the win, the Spartans improved to 10-5-1, the best record for the program since at least 2007.
The 10th win, however, didn’t come without some drama.
After a scoreless first half, the Mustangs struck first when Elie Bourgeois scored to make it a 1-0 game in the 44th minute.
For the next 22 minutes, the Spartans scrambled to score the equalizer while the Mustangs did all they could to prevent it.
Finally, with just less than 15 minutes left in regulation, Berthoud freshman Brynlee Mears scored to tie the game at 1-1. Although both teams had chances, neither scored again in the second half and the game went to overtime.
“I did not really know it was going in, but after it went in, I was glad that we were still in the game,” Mears said of her tying goal. “There was a throw-in, and it bounced and I just thought, ‘You know, you only live once,’ so I took the shot and it went in.”
Ties aren’t allowed in the playoffs, so the first extra 15 minutes were put on the scoreboard and the teams battled again with the next goal being the difference between the end of the season or advancing to the second round.
Ten minutes into the extra period, Okiyama was able to put one in, and the Spartans were able to celebrate an historic win.
“I’m just happy I did it for my team,” Okiyama said. “Especially when we were celebrating, I felt like that. It feels really good and I’m just really happy and I’m really proud of my team for getting us here.”
Before the scoring started in the second half, the teams put on a defensive show in the first 40 minutes. Both teams had their chances, but both goalkeepers also did their part in keeping the game clean in the first half.
And while the Spartans didn’t score for the first 25 minutes of the second half, they were finally able to tie it and then win it in overtime.
“I think that they were just playing down a little bit to the other team’s level,” Dunham said. “We knew at halftime that we had a better skill set and that we could punch the ball into the goal. I think it just came to waking up a little bit in the second half and putting in that full effort for the whole game.”
Now the Spartans move on and will face a more formidable opponent in the second round. Colorado Academy averages 4.9 goals per game while allowing only 1.1.
But the Spartans have come a long way from the beginning of the season, and Dunham believes they can keep going.
“I had a goal to be here in playoffs,” Dunham said. “I was coming in hoping we could just build this season and make it a good season for the girls. But they’ve really blown us out of the water, literally making history every single week. So, we very quickly had that motivation and saw, ‘Hey, we’ve got a good shot here and we can go far if we really put all together.'”
