"I’m actually told not to shoot from there," he said.

 

But Monday afternoon at Mountaineer Field, in the waning moments of regulation with Ephrata down a goal to Section Two leader CV, Smith did indeed load up and fire from about 25 yards out.

 

And the Mounts were glad he did.

 

Smith’s rocket shot with 33 seconds left in regulation went in just inside the left post to tie the game at 1-1, which is how it ended after a pair of scoreless overtime periods.

 

What it did was give Ephrata (5-5-1 16 pts.) a huge point in the Section Two standings. And coupled with Cocalico’s 2-0 loss to E-town Monday, Ephrata now trails the second-place Eagles (6-5-0 18) by just two points with five matches to go in the race for the final Section Two L-L playoff spot.

 

"Getting the point was big for us," Ephrata Coach Rob Deininger said. "We are right on the bubble for districts, and right on the bubble for second place in the section and this keeps us in that hunt going into the next few games. No matter what happens, they have a lot to be proud of and keep fighting through everything."

 

It looked as if the Buckskins were going to walk out of Ephrata with a 1-0 victory.

 

Robby Cardina gave CV, which outshot Ephrata, 14-7, its only goal 21 minutes into the contest when he headed a cross from teammate Ethan Schmalhofer past Ephrata keeper Kole DeHaven.

 

But DeHaven (13 saves) kept his team within one with several brilliant stops. His diving save on a Cardina blast in the final minute of the half was a big one, as was another signature stop he made on Cardina with 14:35 to go in regulation. Cardina received a nice through-ball from a teammate and walked in alone on the sophomore DeHaven, who came out and calmly smothered the shot.

 

"Kole has been fantastic for us all year long," Deininger said. "He knows his position, is very technical and puts himself in the right position to make the saves at all times. Kole’s been a real heads-up player for us all year and has kept us in some games until we got some goals."

 

As was the case Monday. Ephrata’s best chance to score prior to the Smith shot came in the 75th minute when Trevor Boyer lofted a ball over the CV defense to teammate Kyle Phillips on the right post. However, Phillips’ header went through the goal mouth and just wide left.

 

Fortunately for the Mounts, Smith was on target when he got the ball five minutes later.

 

"I think I cleared it, and then it came off a head and back to me," Smith said. "I chested it and we were under a minute and needed to score so I just kicked it and it went in the net."

 

All with Deininger’s blessing of course.

 

"Thirty seconds to go it took a bounce and he took it and hit a great shot right in the corner," the coach said. "We had a couple opportunities just before that to tie it and we had our opportunities toward the end. Fortunately, Kyle was able to connect on it."

 

"The boys from the beginning of the season to now have come a long way," he continued. "They’ve bought into everything that we say and they say and they’ve worked very hard. I’m extremely proud at the moment. We have five games to go to fight to what we want to get to but this gives us an opportunity to stay in that hunt."