Story and Photos by Rusty Ellis
The Cumberland County Jets battled back from an early deficit to force two overtime periods, but saw their season come to a heartbreaking conclusion in a 3-2 loss to Soddy Daisy.
The Trojans opened the scoring just under five minutes into the game with a goal to take a 1-0 lead, and they appeared poised to break the game open with a second goal just three minutes later.
Down 2-0, the Jets buckled down at the defensive end of the pitch and kept the Trojans from extending the lead any further.
Cumberland finally broke through about three minutes into the second half with a goal from Jaziel Perez, cutting the deficit in half.
Soddy Daisy appeared to settle down and regain control, but with just over 14 minutes left in regulation, Reece Crockett fired the ball past the keeper to knot the score at 2-all.
Neither team put together another scoring play when the buzzer sounded to end regulation, as the game moved to its first 10-minute overtime period. When neither team scored within the 10-minute timeframe, a second one was played and it seemed like the game was poised to go to penalty kicks.
It wouldn’t make it that far however, as Soddy Daisy found the back of the net with 9.4 seconds remaining in the period and held off a last-second chance from the Jets to take the 2-0 win and advance to next week’s Spring Fling.
This is the second straight season that the Jets have seen their season come to an end in the substate round.
