St. Raphael's late comeback captures D-III boys soccer title
PROVIDENCE — The halftime team talk went up in smoke after two minutes.
Whatever tactical adjustments St. Raphael coach Jose Escamilla made were scuttled by a quick Ponaganset goal. The Saints saw their deficit double in this Division III boys soccer final, and it was a long hill to climb toward a second straight championship.
They needed the remainder of regulation and all but 32.7 seconds of overtime to reach the mountaintop, but St. Raphael did it yet again. Reginald Browne’s tally in the 90th minute snapped the final tie of the game and gave his team a thrilling 4-3 win.
“At that point, they’ve got to do it themselves on the field,” Escamilla said. “We as coaches cannot play for them. And they did the job. They did what they had to do.”
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Faith was stretched in a match the Saints never led until the close. Travis Chartier’s penalty kick and a second goal from Browne drew St. Raphael even inside the opening 20 minutes of the half. The game remained deadlocked until Sanchez scooped a ball over the top deep into the second five-minute overtime period.
“I never expected the pass,” Browne said.
And yet there it was, parachuting out of the sky and landing in the Chieftains penalty area. It eluded the goalkeeper and was kicked off the line by a defender, but Browne closed the play down hard. He stuck a leg out and watched the ball ricochet off his shin and into the empty cage.
“We had to believe in ourselves and try to play our best,” Browne said. “The game was in our control.
“We didn’t know where the goals were going to come from, but we knew they were going to come.”
This was certainly unconventional but it wasn’t undeserved. The Saints were far too open in the first half and faced a 2-1 deficit at the break. That gap opened wider when Jack Glew’s corner kick found Gavin Langlois at the back post for a simple tap-in.
“We knew it was going to be tough,” Escamilla said. “They’re very strong. They’re very physical.”
Chartier started the rally by drilling his kick into the left side of the cage. He crashed a second penalty off the right post in the 58th minute, but St. Raphael (15-2-1) kept playing the rebound. The cross came in and Sanchez buried one inside the near post to make it 3-3.
“They’ve got to play the game how we’ve been teaching them,” Escamilla said. “Just believe and know anything can happen in that game, and that’s what happened today.
“We were down, 3-1. We came back and tied the game. And with 30 seconds to go, we scored our fourth goal.”
Ponaganset (10-6-2) upset top-seed Scituate in the semifinal and carried that momentum here. Ian Etheridge opened the scoring in the 12th minute and Cristiano DaSilva converted his own penalty kick five minutes later to make it 2-1. The Chieftains took that edge into the break and were 40 minutes from a first title since 1982.
“We came in with the motivation that we could do it again,” Browne said. “We just fed off that.
“Even though it didn’t seem like we were going to win at first, we just played hard. And it happened.”
PONAGANSET (3): Ian Etheridge, Cristiano DaSilva (penalty kick), Gavin Langlois; assists — Jack Glew 2. ST. RAPHAEL (4): Angel Sanchez, Travis Chartier (penalty kick), Reginald Browne 2; assists — Michael Riera, Sanchez.
Halftime — P, 2-1. End of regulation — 3-3. End of first overtime — 3-3. Saves — Paxton Allen, P, 9; Julian Diaz, SR, 5.
On X: @BillKoch25
This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: St. Raphael takes D-III boys soccer title with late-game comeback
