The Creighton Bluejays (4-3) hosted and defeated the Tulsa Golden Hurricanes (2-3-1), 2-1 in overtime on Tuesday night at Morrison Stadium in a thrilling match that came to the final minute twice.
In a last ditch effort on a corner with 20 seconds left, goalie Michael Kluver came up with the ball of the corner kick put the ball on net, which allowed senior Ricky Lopez-Espin to deflect the ball in with 16 seconds left to force overtime. Lopez now has a goal in three of his past four games.
“There’s not much to it other than desperation at that point,” Lopez said. “I didn’t even know Kluver was up … I wish he would have scored, that would have been awesome.”
This forced overtime for the second straight game for the Jays and the first nine minutes were uneventful with poor shots by both sides. In the final minute of overtime, Lopez made two tackles to get the ball and dished it to sophomore Luke Haakenson who then only had Da Silva to beat. Haakenson showed great patience and buried it on the bottom right corner of the net with 13 seconds left.
“As soon as I’m one on one with the keeper, growing up you learn that as soon as the keeper make his move to go down you hit it,” Haakenson said.
The Bluejays were in control for the majority of the game but didn’t get a shot off until 26th minute. Creighton had a number of chances including a goal in the first 10 minutes that was nullified by an offsides call and a shot by senior Lucas Stauffer that almost slipped through Tulsas goalie Marcel Da Silva’s hands.
Tulsa then struck first in the 41st minute on a corner kick that got all the way through the box to defender Gustavo Vargas, who headed the ball in and gave the Golden Hurricanes a 1-0 lead at halftime.
Creighton responded in the second half with a flurry of great chances, taking nine more shots than Tulsa. In the 52nd minute, senior Noah Franke ripped a hard shot that Da Silva was forced to knock out of bounds on his save.
This gave the Bluejays a corner but on the corner Franke was flipped in midair leading to a questionable no-call. Six minutes later Haakenson got loose for a breakaway but was tripped up from behind, leading to another questionable no-call.
The game got choppy in the 75th minute, when Tulsa midfielder Rollie Rocha slid from behind and tripped Stauffer. Stauffer didn’t appreciate it and got up and starting pushing Rocha before teammates and referees got in the middle of it and Rocha was given a yellow card. This reignited the crowd and the Jays never took their foot off the gas afterward.
The Jays outshot the Golden Hurricanes 24-14 and won time of possession as well.
“That’s just soccer for you, you keep going going going,” coach Elmar Bolowich said. “Their goalkeeper made some brilliant saves on the night, if wasn’t for him we have that game wrapped up earlier than that.”
Creighton will try to carry the momentum from Tuesday’s win over to Saturday, when the Jays face Villanova at Morrison Stadium.
On Sept. 26s, Creighton travels to Caniglia Field to take on cross-town rival UNO at 7 p.m. UNO is currently ranked No. 23, with a 7-1 record on the year.
Last year, Creighton and UNO battled to a 1-1 draw that went into double-overtime. This will be the second ever matchup between the two as Division I opponents.