As the seconds were ticking down in a scoreless game, all appeared to be lost for the Triton College men's soccer team in their regular season finale Oct. 19 against College of DuPage at the Jordnt Athletic Complex Multi-Purpose Stadium.
The Trojans were battling for their playoff lives, needing a win to essentially lock-up a postseason berth. Unfortunately, a draw would do Triton no good and likely eliminate them from the Region 4 Division II Tournament.
Despite dominating the majority of the game, Triton could not find the back of the net until the "Miracle on Fifth Avenue" happened.
Oliver Salgado (Leyden) buried a strike from 10 yards out from the middle of the field off a header from
Rambert Ramos (Von Stueben) with four seconds left to give the Trojans an improbable 1-0 victory.
The goal sparked a massive celebration by the entire Trojans squad in the corner of the field while the COD players on the field were in shock and disbelief of the Salgado dramatics that likely punched Triton's ticket into the playoffs and possibly ended the Chaparrals season with the regional tournament seeds officially unveiled later this week.
"Tonight, had all the emotion of a playoff game and it feels great to win the way we did," said head coach
Piotr Sliwa. "In all my years at Triton have never been apart of a game that went down to the last four seconds. Oliver (Salgado) scored a tremendous goal. He saved us. He has been saving us all year."
For the game, Triton out-shot COD 9-2 as
Mykhailo Shymkiv (Ridgewood) and
Alexis Garcia (Leyden) split the goalkeeping duties in the shutout.
The opening round of the Region 4 Division II Tournament will take place on Halloween (Oct. 31), opponent and location to be determined.
Follow Triton Athletics on Twitter @TritonTrojans1 or on Instagram @Triton_College_Athletics
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