Alexa Herrera's hat-trick fueled the Triton College women's soccer team to their first postseason victory in five years as the No. 8 seeded Trojans defeated No. 9 seed Kankakee Community College 3-2 in the first round of the Region 4 Division II Tournament Oct. 28 at the Jorndt Athletic Complex Multi-Purpose Field.

The last playoff win for Triton came on Halloween of 2021, a 6-0 shutout of the College of Lake County.

"It's special," said Trojans head coach Francisco Estrada on the significance of winning a postseason game. "Every year, we were building to get this to point, to be able to compete in this region and advance in the playoffs."

Triton (7-7-2) also in the process avenged a 5-4 road loss to the Cavaliers (7-9-2) 11 days earlier with a much better team defensive effort, while their leading scorer did the rest.

Herrera put the Trojans on the board with a penalty kick goal in the 18^th minute.

Triton maintained their 1-0 advantage until the 50^th minute when a Trojan giveaway led to a Tyeisha Griffith goal to tie the contest.

Griffith would strike again on a deep ball from 35-yard that carried in breeze over the head of Triton goalie Ashley Mancera in the 70^th minute to give Kankakee a 2-1 edge.

The Cavaliers had the momentum and Mancera would make a key save a few minutes later to keep the game at 2-1 to set up the late-game heroics from Herrera.

Her second tally came in the 82^nd minute to draw the Trojans even and gave the team life.

Three minutes later Triton applied the pressure as Herrera got the ball in the box, missed on her first attempt, but got a huge rebound and buried the shot in the back of the net to give the Trojans the lead.

Kankakee could not generate any decent chances late as Triton defended well in the closing minutes to spark quite a celebration on the field.

"Alexa has been great for us all season and we're definitely a better team with her on the field," Estrada said. Today her teammates were able to push through as we held (Kankakee) to two goals after scoring five on us the last time we played. That is a lot of credit to our defense and goalkeeping as well."

Next up for the Trojans is a trip to South Suburban College, the tournament's top seed and No. 15 ranked team in the nation. The Bulldogs (13-1) were a 4-0 winner Sept. 30 over Triton when the teams met in the regular season.  

"South Suburban is a good team and nothing comes easy against them," Estrada said. "But we need to go there with the approach that we are there to win, play together and play with confidence."

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