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Last-minute heroics lift Coppell boys to 5A soccer title

Madden ties it late, then scores with 56 seconds left in OT

GEORGETOWN — Coppell’s boys soccer team stood huddled near midfield, jumping with joy. The catalyst for that happiness, junior right back Chris Madden, trailed behind, shuffling across the field — exhausted — before being steered in the direction of the TV cameras.

There was good reason for his fatigue. Madden had just lifted his team to a state championship.

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He scored on a 20-yard free kick with 3:32 left in regulation to force overtime, then knocked in a low, driving 20-yard kick with 56 seconds remaining in overtime for a 3-2 win over Brownsville Hanna in the Class 5A final at Birkelbach Field.

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The win gave Coppell its second title in school history, also winning in 2004.

“Unbelievable,” Coppell coach Chad Rakestraw said of Madden’s two goals. “[The free kick] was clutch. To be able to put that on frame and to finish it the way he did, there’s no better place to finish it but the top corner.”

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Rakestraw said he had already started to think about a penalty-kick shootout, when Madden pulled up from outside the 18-yard box, powering a shot that skimmed off the turf as it beat Hanna keeper Eduardo Vargas in the far corner.

“The forwards and I were saying, ‘Hey, let’s not take this to PKs; let’s finish this now,’” Madden said. “I got my opportunity to take it and it worked out.”

That Coppell (23-2-0) needed Madden’s heroics was astounding.

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Hanna (26-2-3) went for long expanses without any sustained possession. It didn’t have a shot, much less a shot on goal, in the first 20 minutes of both halves.

Drake Lovelady’s opening goal in the 18th minute put a pretty bow on Coppell’s first-half play, knocking in a beautiful back heel on a pass from Mitchell Parnell.

Yet, as both halves winded down, Hanna’s counter-attack started to gain traction. All it took was a three-minute span midway through the second half to take a 2-1 lead.

Andres Cervantes was knocked down in the 18-yard box in the 58th minute, and Hanna’s leading scorer, Carlos Acevedo, knocked home a rebound off his penalty kick to tie the score. In the 61st minute, Acevedo — who scored 47 goals this season — scored again, this time with a header off a free kick by Juan Garcia.

“They hit those two in quick,” Madden said. “It was pretty deflating, but we bounced back.”

Follow Corbett Smith on Twitter at @corbettsmithDMN