Phillylacrosse.com, Posted 6/19/11
James Oeth did his best C.J. Costabile impression, and it left his Twist teammates rolling on the turf.
Oeth, a longstick midfielder, scored the game-winning goal eight seconds into overtime to give the Twist U15A team a 4-3 win over Victor (N.Y.) in the championship game of the 7/8th grade A Division Saturday at the Lehigh Lax Fest.
Twist won all six of its games at the tournament, defeating the Long Island Lizards, Blue Mountain (Central Pa.), the Connecticut Lakers and the South Jersey Shamrocks in Pool Play, and then Chatham (N.J.) in the semifinals to set up the championship game against Victor, from outside Rochester.
After not trailing in any of its first five games, Twist fell behind 3-0 at the half in the final. From there, the Twist defense – led by Oeth, Mike Eveland, Nick Lawlor, Brandon Huegel, Anthony Bozzelli and Matthew Anderson – tightened and Greg Price made four second-half saves to keep Victor from adding to its lead.
Ben Bala scored twice to make it a 3-2 game, and Connor Howell tied it on an assist from Aric Dupell with five minutes to play. Twist had two more shots and Victor had three more with the score at 3-3, but neither team could score.
Unlike the earlier rounds of the tournament, where ties were decided by Bravehearts, the final featured a full 10-on-10 overtime.
Twist’s Jack Auteri pushed the face-off to the wing, and Oeth – in a play similar to Costabile’s winning goal in OT for Duke in the 2010 NCAA final – took the ball straight down the middle and fired in the game winner from just inside the box.
Howell led Twist with seven goals and seven assists in the tournament, while Dupell and Auteri scored five goals each on the day.
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