MONTGOMERY, Ala. - 96 minutes and 53 seconds after kickoff, it was the whole team that stormed the field, dogpiling
Thiago Micki who played the role of match winner for Faulkner (3-8, 2-2 SSAC) after playing the final 38 minutes down a man Saturday at Billy D. Hilyer Stadium in an important 1-0 win over conference foe Blue Mountain (5-7, 1-3 SSAC.)
Micki's second collegiate goal and second of the weekend came off of
Felipe Pineiro's free kick on a foul drawn by
Ilan Tabet. The Frenchman headed the ball towards the middle of the box where Micki delivered the moment of magic the match had desperately needed. The Brazilian took a touch to get around the defender and fired a left-footed shot into the bottom right corner of the goal, bouncing past the outstretched goalkeeper and ricocheting off the corner brace across the goal line for the golden goal.
Overtime was forced in the dying embers of regulation as
Nic Fischer dove to his right to rob Breno Neves in the 89th minute forcing a corner kick. Blue Mountain's cross yielded one last shot as the Hamburglar collected another save with just 13 seconds to play. He stopped all seven shots on target he faced en route to his second consecutive clean sheet, the first time a Faulkner keeper recorded back-to-back shutouts since Caio Calado in 2019. Fischer picked up 12 saves and had the spark plug punt to set up the first goal against Talladega.
The turning point in the match for the Eagles is a little contradictory.
Oliver Keane received a second yellow and was ejected from the match in the 59th minute. From that moment, Faulkner actually took the match over. Faulkner outshot the Toppers 6-1 over the next 15 minutes and 9-5 until the end of the match.
Keepers ruled the day for the first 95 minutes as Francisco Ruiz-Zuniga went toe-to-toe with Fischer with seven saves of his own.
The win marked the second time in SSAC play (3/18/2021 against Middle Georgia) that Gabriel de Queiroz's team went down a man in a tied match and won in overtime.
