Radford falls to Stonewall Jackson 3-2 on penalty kicks

>When Radford and Stonewall Jackson met in the Group A boys state soccer semifinals Saturday morning, something eventually had to give. The only question was when.

Because both teams entered the match played at Salem High School unbeaten, it was not totally surprising that they finished 80 minutes of regulation play tied. But after four five-minute overtimes and the first set of five penalty kicks, it was still 2-2.

Only on the eighth penalty kick did Stonewall emerge with a 3-2 victory. Needing a goal to keep pace with the Generals' Roberto Cardoso, who had beaten Radford goalkeeper Matt Levison on the left side, Radford senior defenseman Juan Perez saw his game-tying attempt glance off the left post. The ball rolled harmlessly onto the field of play.

"Noooo -" Perez groaned as the Generals mobbed Jackson keeper Ryan Zerkle, who may have slightly grazed Perez' kick and pushed it toward the post.

Stonewall (24-0) advances to play the George Mason-Galax winner Sunday at 10 a.m. at Radford University. The Bobcats finished their season 20-1.

"It was hot, but it was a great game, though," said 21-year-old Generals coach Caleb Golladay, a rising senior at Eastern Mennonite University. Golladay said it will be only the second time Stonewall has played for a state championship. The Generals lost 1-0 to Clarke County in the 2006 final.

The Generals were pushed beyond regulation in only one other game this season, and Stonewall defeated Clarke County in the fourth overtime, so PKs were a new route to victory this year.

"It was two very even teams, two teams that played very hard," Radford coach Greg Wade said. "Penalty kicks are never a good way to settle it, but we had played 100 minutes of hard soccer."

Wade said he was going with his seniors first on the late penalty kicks.

In the opening set of five PKs, Radford rallied from an early deficit when Zach Turk was successful in a must-make situation, the final try, making it 3-3 on PKs. The teams matched one another on the sixth and seventh rounds (Eduardo Juarez and David Dodson scoring for Jackson ; Caleb Findley and Kirk converting for the Bobcats).

Radford had countered every Stonewall score to that point. The Generals had gone up 1-0 and 2-1 (on first-half goals by Juan Luna and Cardoso ).

Conner Williams scored Radford's goal off a corner kick from Perez in the 30th minute; Henry Gichana knotted the score at 2 in the 58th minute on a breakaway. Zerkle blocked his first attempt, but Gichana put away the rebound.

Radford won the statistical battle with more shots and corner kicks.

"Zerkle came up big for us," Golladay said. "He was going to be our next kicker [if the penalty kicks had gone to the ninth attempt], too."

A blazing sun burned off early morning cloud cover and the temperature was approaching 80 by the time Saturday's contest ended at 12:30.

"We're going to spend the rest of the day getting rest and replacing fluids," Golladay said.

"We're tired."

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