Isael Lopez (4) competes for posession at midfield Saturday against Douglas at DHS.
MINDEN — Osvaldo Gomez couldn’t have picked a better time to score his first goal of the season.
Gomez, who missed the first couple of games because of academic issues and another one with an injury, scored in extra time to snap a 4-all tie and give Carson a thrilling, 5-4, come-from-behind win over Douglas on Saturday.
Carson is unbeaten in its last six matches, the only blemish being a 3-all tie with Wooster. The Senators now lead the Colts by five points after Manogue tied Wooster 2-2 on Saturday.
“They (Carson) thought it was going to be easy,” Carson coach Frank Martinez said. “We never quit competing. It’s not often a team comes back with only 10 players.”
Martinez was referring to the Senators’ predicament after Guillermo Perez picked up his second yellow card of the game midway through the second half. It isn’t known whether Perez will miss Wednesday’s match against Galena.
The ejection didn’t seem to faze the Senators, who scored four of their five goals in the final 40 minutes, including three in the final nine minutes. In fact, the Senators trailed or were tied the final 67 minutes of the match.
The Tigers led 3-1 with 26 minutes remaining, but were unable to hold on.
The Senators tied the match at 4 on Isael Lopez’s goal in approximately the 78th minute.
Moments later, Carson got possession back, and Raul Lopez crossed the ball to Gomez. Douglas keeper Dennis Gingrich came out from the goalline in an attempt to either catch or knock the ball away. He failed, and Gomez banged in the game-winning shot.
“I decided to stay up around the goal,” Gomez said. “He (Gingrich) went for it and I shot it. We were frustrated and playing one man down.”
“I don’t know why he got out so far,” Douglas coach Chase Zumpft said. “The effort was there. We didn’t keep the pressure up to slow down the game. They have a lot of goal scorers. This was how the Carson-Douglas game used to be when I played.”
Douglas’ Javi Vega scored three goals.
Julio Loera gave Carson its first lead of the game with a goal in the 13th minute.
In the next 12 minutes, Carson had two good looks. Perez misfired on a direct free kick and Loera had a shot go off the crossbar.
Vega gave the Tigers a 2-1 lead at the half, scoring in the 32nd and 38th minute. The second goal was somewhat controversial.
The lines person on the Carson side raised her flag signaling offsides, and the head referee either didn’t see her flag or waved it off much to the chagrin of the Carson sideline.
Douglas freshman Manuel Solis gave the Tigers a 3-1 lead when he beat Jose Rodriguez in the 54th minute.
Two minutes later, Efren Ramirez scored on a penalty kick to make it 3-2.
Ramirez put a direct free kick off the crossbar four minutes later, and then Loera and Lopez got off unsuccessful shots in the 57th and 58th minute, respectively.
Ramirez tied the match at 3 with a shot in the upper right corner in the 71st minute.
Just as it did against Wooster, the Senators let down after tying the match, and Vega made them pay with his third score of the game, giving the Tigers a 4-3 lead in the 74th minute.
That set the stage for heroics by Lopez and Gomez.