By Kevin Farr
Murray State Sports Information
ENID, Okla – Top seed Murray State withstood 110 minutes of scoreless soccer and two 90-minute weather delays to knock off rival Eastern State College 4-1 in penalty kicks on Sunday afternoon and claim its second straight NJCAA Region 2 Championship.

Freshman Francisco Pinochet put on a stellar performance in goal for the victory, turning back every Mountaineer scoring attempt in regulation and a pair of overtime periods before making a pair of diving saves on three Eastern penalty kick attempts.

The Aggies meanwhile made all four of their penalty kicks to clinch the win and move on to the Mid-South District title tilt next week in quest of their second consecutive bid to the NJCAA National Tournament. Now 17-1 on the season, ninth-ranked Murray State will visit Ranger Junior College for that contest.

"I felt like we had good momentum in the overtime but the delay kind of stopped us," head coach Alex Morais said afterward. "I'm glad the guys were able to deal with it and showed a lot of character to come through. They did a good job understanding the game plan and doing what we needed of them.

"It's kind of ironic that we were training a week ago and I told the staff that I think we needed to work on penalty kicks so we would be prepared for anything. I'm glad we did that. We really trusted our first group that were taking kicks and they came through. Francisco did a great job stopping two shots. He was confident all day. He made a very good save in the first half to keep them off the board and then the two big ones on the PKs. I'm really excited for him."

Despite the scoreless contest through regulation there were plenty of exciting moments, including a sensational defensive play by Nicolo Donadio in the 20^th minute to get back and thwart an Eastern breakaway scoring bid.

The Aggies then had three near misses themselves as two shot attempts banged off the goal post and another nice header from Luis Rodrigues off a corner kick pass with 14:30 remaining sailed just left of the goal.

Following the first 90-minute weather delay before the start of the second half, Murray State again had an opportunity 15 minutes in on a pair of crossing passes in the goal box but could not get a shot off. Eastern then missed a golden opportunity with a shot wide left on a two-on-one break into the Murray State end. The final real Aggie chance came in the game's 83^rd minute as a curving left-footed, 20-yard shot from Ryosuke Miyata was saved by the Eastern keeper.

Neither team produced many chances in the first 10-minute extra frame but Murray State got the attack in gear in the second overtime with three close range scoring tries that were just high or deflected away.

That set the stage for penalty kicks to decide the outcome and the Aggies proved to be perfect as Carlos Zapata opened by blasting a shot into the left corner of the net. Eastern answered by sneaking a shot past Pinochet on its first opportunity but that proved to be the final Mountaineer connection.

Miyata smashed the next shot with his left foot into the right side of the Eastern net and Rodrigues found the right corner on his try to put Murray State two scores in front after the Aggie keeper's two stellar diving stops.

That set the stage for sophomore Gui Alves for the clincher and he delivered with the smack into the left corner pocket to set off the Aggie celebration.

"The ceiling is high for this group," Morais added. "I think we have what it takes to do something special and the goal is to continue that next week at Ranger."