UW soccer, with Ferris grad Jadon Bowton in net, beats NC State in OT for first NCAA title
Washington men’s soccer won its first national title Monday night thanks to an overtime golden-goal winner from Harrison Bertos for a 3-2 championship win over NC State.
Playing in nearby Cary, North Carolina, NC State clawed back from a 2-0 deficit and tied the score at 2-2 with three minutes left in regulation to force overtime. But the Huskies managed to get the winner in dramatic fashion, scoring a few minutes into the first overtime period.
Washington goalie Jadon Bowton, a Ferris High graduate, made five saves.
“We told them it was going to be hard. … There are going to be twists and turns. To give up a goal with three minutes to go and put their heads back up and go out there again, it’s incredible,” Washington coach Jamie Clark told ESPN afterward.
Clark admitted he didn’t know who scored the winner, which was under review for a possible offside. When ESPN told him it was Huskies center back Harrison Bertos, Clark exclaimed, “Harry? Oh, we live by the Bertos, we die by the Bertos! That was our saying all year!”
Washington knocked out five of the tournament’s 16 national seeds during its run to the title.
Both teams played with urgency from kickoff, but the Huskies attacked first. Washington’s Zach Ramsey scored in the 44th minute after NC State goalkeeper Logan Erb left the box to deflect a ball. Erb, however, did not clear the ball out of play and allowed Ramsey to repossess the ball. Miscommunication between the goalkeeper and the Wolfpack’s back line left the net clear for a wide open goal right before halftime.
It was just the 11th goal conceded by Erb this season. He finished with 13 allowed. Erb entered the NCAA Tournament as the ACC Goalkeeper of the Year and is a second-team All-American.
Washington (16-6-2) moved to 13-0 when scoring first, while NC State ends the season 0-3 when trailing at halftime.
The Huskies started the second half with an equally aggressive attack, threatening again in the 49th minute. The Wolfpack cleared the ball out of the box to narrowly avoid a multigoal deficit.
UW added its second goal in the 62nd minute after Joe Dale slipped the ball past Carlos Santamaria and Nikola Markovic. Erb, stretching to his right, was able to corral the loose ball.
It seemed like all the momentum favored NC State (16-3-4) in the second half especially, as it rallied from a two-goal deficit.
Forward Donavan Phillip scored his 19th goal of the season in the 66th minute of regulation. Phillip, a first-team All-American and ACC Offensive Player of the Year, squeezed the ball past a flurry of bodies to put NC State on the board.
Then, with three and a half minutes left in regulation, the Wolfpack tied the game at two. NC State used a three-player sequence on the scoring play. Defender Calem Tommy completed a clean pass to midfielder Justin McLean. McLean found midfielder Taig Healy for a kick into the right corner.