CORPUS CHRISTI — The Porter Cowboys are still alive in the Class 5A state soccer playoffs by the narrowest of margins.
Porter prevailed over the Calallen Wildcats 4-3 in penalty kicks in the area round of the playoffs Friday at Cabaniss Field.
After 100 minutes of regulation and overtime action led to a 3-3 deadlock, it took 12 players attempting PKs — six from each team — to decide a winner.
District 32-5A champion Porter didn’t play its best game and the District 30-5A third-place Wildcats gave everything they had in trying to pull off an upset to hand the Cowboys their first loss of the season.
The Cowboys, who trailed 1-0 and 2-1, missed a first-half penalty kick and had an early second-half goal waved off on an offsides call.
It was that kind of night for the Cowboys, who summoned every ounce of their soccer skills to pull out the victory that advanced them to next week’s Region IV-5A quarterfinals to take on District 31-5A champion Sharyland High.
“Calallen has a lot of heart,” Porter coach Jose Espitia said. “We knew they were going to be physical and fight hard for every 50-50 ball. They never gave up and it became a very strange game. Things became complicated. Our boys gave it their all. We had our opportunities (to score), but we missed them. Calallen played well defensively. For us, I just see this game as a wake-up call.”
After Harambe Garcia, the sixth Porter player to attempt a PK, gave his team a 5-4 edge, the Wildcats’ sixth player in the penalties, John Schumacher, saw his try hit the crossbar and bounce away, giving the Cowboys the win.
Before the PKs, Porter’s Alexis Armendariz tallied a pair of goals to keep his team in the back-and-forth match.
“It’s a beautiful feeling that any soccer player would want to have,” Armendariz said of scoring his two goals. “It’s emotional for me and my team (to win this game).”
A header off a corner kick by Ashton Merkich just seven minutes into the match gave Calallen a 1-0 advantage.
With about five minutes left in the opening half, Armendariz tallied from close range to tie the score at 1. But a couple minutes later, Calallen’s Christian Mochen sent a rocket of a shot from 25 yards into the right corner of the goal to give the Wildcats a 2-1 advantage at intermission.
Porter again pulled even, this time at 2, midway through the second half when the ball was centered from the far left corner and Omar Estrada, situated near the right post, drilled it into the net.
The match went to OT and the Cowboys appeared to be in good shape when Armendariz scored his second goal on a high ball over the goalkeeper with barely a minute elapsed in the first half of OT to put Porter ahead 3-2.
Calallen’s Merkich sent a free kick from 25-plus yards that skipped off a defender into the net with only a minute or so left in the first half of OT to knot the score at 3.
Once in PKs, Porter goalkeeper Jaime Gomez blocked the first Calallen shot to put the Wildcats at a deficit. Porter made five of six PK tries when Schumacher’s PK attempt hit the crossbar, leaving the score 5-4 in penalties and giving the win to the Cowboys.
Uriel Sepulveda, Marco Don Juan, Enrique Soto and Armendariz made penalties for Porter.