Dramatic victory puts Eagles into state championship match

<a href="https://x.com/avoneagles/status/1986250921618141563" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Game Winning Goal!!!</a>The wind giveth and the wind taketh away. Playing in a Division II state semifinal Wednesday at Twinsburg High School, Avon’s boys soccer team faced not only a Brecksville-Broadview Heights team that they had tied, 2-2, earlier in the season, but also conditions that at times were almost unplayable. With winds gusting well over 20 miles per hour and blowing straight down the field, play was distorted throughout the match. The corner flags were blown to the ground, and players had trouble getting the ball to sit still when taking a corner kick or a free kick. Goalkeepers were punting the ball well past midfield with the wind at their backs and barely to their own 35-yard line going the other way. In fact, the winning goal, scored by Avon’s Connor Britt in sudden death overtime, can best be described as wind-aided. The sophomore had no intention of scoring on his free kick from about 40 yards out, but with the wind at his back, he put the ball high into the air and then watched as it sailed over Brecksville keeper Bruno Berlin into the upper lefthand corner of the goal. Berlin kept backing up on the ball, but the wind pushed it over his head, giving the Eagles a 2-1 victory and sending them into the state final Sunday at Historic Crew Stadium in Columbus against Kings Mills Kings. “I didn’t really think anything at first,” said Britt. “Then, when it goes in, I’m like, ‘Oh my god.’ It was surreal. And then, all the fans behind me. I got to celebrate with my school. It was awesome. We’re the first soccer team in Lorain County to ever do this. It’s awesome to make history.” It was a dramatic ending to a match that almost got away from the 16-2-3 Eagles, but more on that later. First, a word about perhaps the most important moment of the match, the coin toss before the overtime period. Avon won the toss to start the match, and the Eagles chose to have the wind at their backs. The strategy was to jump on the Bees in the first half and then hold on in the second, as the forecast called for the wind to die as the evening progressed. But instead, the wind picked up in the second half, and Brecksville tied the score at 1-1 with less than 3 minutes to play, forcing the overtime and the crucial aspect of the second coin toss. Senior captains Oliver Dobrovic, Logan Fitchko and Finn Petzinger represented Avon at midfield. “We were the home team, so we made the call at the beginning,” said Dobrovic. “(This time) they called tails. When the ref showed us heads, all three of us pointed the same way.” Obviously, the Eagles chose to have the wind at their backs once again. Early in the extra period, Britt had free kicks from long distance, and he over-hit the ball right to Berlin. But on the game-winner he was more careful. “My coach just said, ‘Hit it away from their keeper,’ because I hit a few of those, and I got too excited,” said Britt. “I was like, ‘I’m just going to hit it as hard as I can, back post away from the keeper, and see where it goes. And it goes top end and there it is. We won. It was awesome.” Avon coach Chris Dore said, “That was more like a cross. The last couple of long crosses that we had went basically directly to the keeper. I just told him, ‘Don’t play the ball to the keeper. Just give the kids an opportunity to get at the end of the cross. But the cross turned into a goal, and I don’t care.” There was a moment’s hesitation after the ball went into the goal, as it wasn’t clear exactly what had happened. But then the Avon players exploded into delirium and the cheering section soon joined in. “I didn’t think it went in,” said Dore. “I thought it went over, but then I saw them celebrating. I was just so wrapped up in what was going on. I clearly didn’t expect the ball to go in. I didn’t really know that it happened until I saw the reaction from everybody, and then I started to celebrate a little bit.” Dore was at a loss to exactly put into words what had just happened, a result that makes Avon the first soccer team of either gender from Lorain County to reach a state final. “I can’t,” he said. “It’s very difficult. It’s been 19 years since I started here, so that’s more than 350 games working toward getting to this level. You never can expect it, but when it happens, it’s unexplainable.” With the wind at their backs in the first half, the Eagles dominated play, but only managed to score once. With 22 minutes left in the first half, sophomore Cole Veverka made a long run to the offensive side of the field and then found himself on the receiving end of a pass from Brock Harman. Veverka chested the ball to his feet and then turned and blasted a rocket from about 20 yards to the right side of the goal. As dominant as Avon was in the first half, so was Brecksville in the second. Clearly, the wind was a determining factor. “Quite frankly, I didn’t realize how strong the wind was in the first half because we were going with it and I was enjoying the pressure that we were putting on,” said Dore. “When the second half started, we were on our heels a little bit, and I was like, ‘Oh, I just realized how difficult it is to play against this wind.’ Wind is a huge factor in this sport. It’s probably the most difficult type of weather to play in.” As Dobrovic put it, “The wind was unreal. It was moving the ball like crazy. On Connor’s last shot, I could see it just moving back and forth in the wind. It was crazy.” Dobrovic finished the match with seven saves. He also was spectacular in defending crosses and long passes. “He’s a stud right now, you know?” said Dore. “A lot of goalkeeping, a lot of all this play for all the players, has to do with confidence. He’s playing with a huge amount of confidence. He’s a college-level goalkeeper. Our best teams that we’ve had in the last 19 years have all had stellar goalkeeping, and this year is no different. He’s really stepped up, and he’s a big part of the reason why we’re going to be playing on Sunday.” Avon’s steadfast defense managed to keep the Bees out of the nets for almost the entire second half. It was only a flukey goal from Milos Crncevic that deflected off an Avon defender that kept the Eagles from their 13th shutout of the season. Dobrovic appeared to be in position to handle the shot, but after the ball changed directions on the deflection, he was helpless to stop it. Thus, with just 2:58 to play, the score was tied, leading to the second coin toss and a critical team huddle before the overtime began. “I can’t say everything that we talked about,” said Dore. “I don’t want to give everybody our strategy. But it was a little bit of motivating, a little bit of getting them to dig deeper. When you’re up all game fighting to hold your lead and then a team scores on you in the last few minutes, that’s not a very good feeling. It’s a bit demoralizing. There were certain looks on their faces, heads down a little bit. But it’s not like we were losing. We just needed to keep fighting.” Fight is something that this team has in spades. “When we went back to our huddle, instead of dropping our heads, we were all super-positive with each other,” said Britt. “We’ve been together and built a lot of good chemistry, good positivity. So, we were like, ‘Let’s just go and win this.’ And that’s exactly what we did.”