CHESTER, Vt.– Oh, the magic of cell phones and such. The joy of Andrei Solzhenitsyn’s golden goal that gave the Green Mountain (GM) boys soccer team the 3-2 overtime win over Stowe and the Division III state title was felt from Rutland to Chester nearly as soon as the senior put it in the net.
“It came off Evan Kirdzik’s head and deflected right to my foot, and I put it in the goal. It really was that simple,” Solzhenitsyn said.
Raz Backlund, who had Green Mountain’s first goal, said the level of confidence coming into the overtime session was high.
“We talked about giving it our all, 100%,” Backlund said. “We knew that Stowe is a great team, but so are we.”
The goalkeeping of Green Mountain senior Derek Hodgdon was incredible. He came off his line to thwart threats before they materialized, and also had some reaction saves of lasers from point blank range.
“Derek is the reason we won the game,” said assistant coach Scott Walker, who has been working with Hodgdon for the past four years.
Scott and his son Jake Walker (Green Mountain’s head coach) were former goalies at the Chester school.
“I’ve been working with him since he was a freshman, and we really started elevating the level of psychology that there is in goalkeeping this year,” Scott said.
“Today is the first two goals that he has allowed in the playoffs.”
Top-seeded Stowe brought a 15-1-1 record to Rutland’s Alumni Field on Saturday, and got on top 7:18 into the game when Cody Lilly fed a great pass to Graeme Jostrand and Jostrand buried it.
Kirdzik made a strong bid to pull GM even, but his shot went over the bar.
But Backlund did not miss. He scored amidst a wild scramble in the goal area to knot the score, and it still stood 1-1 at halftime.
The Raiders pushed the attack hard when the game resumed. Hodgdon made a nice save on a bullet off the foot of Jostrand, and Tanner Swisher had to execute a header to clear the ball after a Stowe corner kick.
But Green Mountain got its first lead with 21:12 remaining in the game on a line shot in the upper corner by Joachim Gibson from 25 yards away.
It was only a minute later that the Raiders came within an eyelash of answering. Jostrand struck a sizzler from close range that Hodgdon somehow managed to deflect for a corner kick.
Senior captain Parker Guffey deftly headed Julian Roscioli-Barran’s corner kick past Hodgdon to tie the score at 2-2 with 18:30 remaining in regulation time.
Roscioli-Barran made a dangerous-looking cross in the waning minutes of regulation play, and Backlund made a serious scoring bid, but time expired and the extra time began. It was a sudden death format with two 15-minute overtimes to be played if necessary, followed by the penalty kick tiebeaker.
But Solzhenitsyn saw that only 10:32 in the first overtime needed to be played before the wild celebration broke out.
Number 3 Green Mountain wraps up the title with a 17-1 record.
Green Mountain was playing in its fourth state final in the last six years, and had last won the championship in 2019.
It was the perfect way to go out for seniors Hodgdon, Kirdzik, Swisher, Max Peebles, Solzhenitsyn, Gibson, Caleb Merrow, and Reece Cassin.
Of note, Stowe does not lose often in the state championship game. The Raiders’ record is now 14-3 in the title game. This was the third state championship for Green Mountain. Chester High School, the forerunner of Green Mountain, also won one in 1967, when the Sentinels edged Otter Valley 2-1 in the big game.
Written by Tom Haley, Rutland Herald Staff Writer.