The tale of the 18-win Dragon team ends where no Cornwall team had gone before, a 2-1 loss to the defending state soccer champions of Garden City. The storybook ending came 20 hours premature, seconds to go in the semifinal game.

Cornwall and Chuchville-Chili met on a Friday, five hours-drive separating the Saints from home field. As early darkness crept in, the Dragons defied nearly every law of sports.
“I’ve been around the game of soccer since I was seven. Thirty-seven years I’ve been around this sport, I’ve never been a part of anything like this before,” said Cornwall’s JV coach Michael Daniels.

Three minutes and 18 seconds before halftime, Churchville-Chili had steepened an uphill Dragon battle, a 2-0 lead after 40 minutes. Both sides were scoreless until Carlo Vallejo revived Cornwall with 10 minutes to go.

Flecks of fear appeared in the eyes of the Saints, and Cornwall sensed every bit. More time was spent in the Dragons’ attacking half from there on than the previous 70 minutes. For the next nine, Churchville-Chili had no defense against the synchronicity that drained many a challenger before them.

It took a lot of Dragon magic to pull off the win. But none of it happens without one unlikely hero, joining partway through this story. Enter sophomore Lucas Santiago, the Dragon’s second goalkeeper on the depth chart. Brent Zimmer was handed a yellow card, and forced out of the game with Churchville-Chili on the cusp of a corner kick. Santiago was a wall when it mattered most, keeping the Dragon deficit at 2. Zimmer came back for the rest of his 16 total saves, each higher stakes than the last.

Rayqwon Picton scored the equalizer off a Slav Mishkovski pass, stopping the clock again at 3:18. A freak coincidence, maybe, but the stuff of true legend wouldn’t arrive for another 2 minutes and 53 seconds.

Strings of passes led to linked arms on the Dragon bench, anxious glances as the clock turned to two, then one minute remaining. Aaron Schulman’s goal with 25 seconds left in the game suspended the earth’s rotation. The crowd pummeled their cowbells. Bleached-blonde Churchville-Chili players dropped their heads; others fell to their knees. The Dragons had done the unthinkable without a full minute to spare.

“Our guys are resilient, they’re tough. They never gave up. We were outplayed for 70 minutes, but thank God the game is 80 minutes,” said coach Matt Quick after the game.

Opposite every champion’s jubilation, there must be devastation. The latter came for Cornwall the following day.

It only took five minutes for Schulman to again deliver the Dragon lead. A goalkeeper yellow card came inside the penalty box, to Garden City’s chagrin. Schulman at the dot, a slicing shot to beat the keeper. The Dragons took the lead to halftime, but hopes of an upset dwindled with two unanswered Garden City goals. The Dragons’ story ends valiantly, a final possession just outside the Trojan penalty box.

A decades-long odyssey for the 10 Dragon seniors met an end at Middletown’s Faller Field. In the wake of defeat, having ventured where a Cornwall boys’ soccer team had never gone before, they write this tale. To be continued when Dragons fight again.