City High eliminated from state soccer in heartbreaking fashion

DES MOINES — There are a million ways to lose a soccer game, but City High might have found the worst way possible in a 3-2 (5-4), double overtime shootout with Sioux City West.

The Little Hawks' and Wolverines' shootout reached the sixth kicker. When Luis Padilla's shot sailed high, City's Gaby Baloci had a chance to win the game and he appeared to do so when his kick went into the net, but the referee disallowed the goal and made him rekick, apparently claiming Baloci's stutter-step approach to the ball was against the rules.

Baloci missed his next attempt to send it to the seventh kickers. West's Carlos Munoz made his, but City's Daniel Goldenstein missed and West won.

Munoz said his team saw the stutter step and thought it was illegal. Then he took care of business.

'When I place the ball I calm down and let all the noise and the tension go away and I clear my mind,' Munoz said. 'I look at the keeper to see where he's moving, and I just placed the ball to the left side.

'It was really an intense game.'

The Little Hawks (16-4) were devastated by the bizarre turn of events.

'I don't know what to say so I don't get in trouble,' an obviously distraught City Coach Jose Fajardo said. 'That is not fair because the rule is you can stutter if you go forward, and he never went backward. Peter (Larsen) did absolutely the same thing. The rule is in the book. You cannot break the dream of so many people with that kind of call. It's not fair.

'We did not put the game away before, true. And we did not finish 400 chances, true. But that is not fair. We get penalized for saying the F-word and for saying this and saying that. Somebody should get penalized for doing such a crap thing. It's not fair, it's too many dreams; it's too much hard work. I hope that guy can sleep well tonight.'

City co-captain Adam Nicholson said 'it made sense that they called it, but they didn't think about it enough. Peter definitely did the same thing. There's so many people watching they've got to think about that call harder. It's such a big game. They didn't talk about it afterward.'

City never trailed until the end, but every time it scored West answered quickly. Nicholson scored on a PK in the eighth minute, but 12 seconds later Antonio Hernandez scored on a breakaway.

Nasim Salih scored in the 28th minute with assists from Larsen and Collin O'Meara, but the Wolverines' Padilla scored on a corner six minutes later.

The Little Hawks had four great chances to score in the second overtime, but keeper Manuel Garcia stopped three of them and a header off a corner went high.

'Obviously we had a good season,' Nicholson said. 'It's not easy to lose like this. It's such a long season and we worked so hard.'