MONMOUTH, Ore. --- The Western Oregon men's soccer team needed a win Saturday to at least share a piece of its second-straight GNAC title.
It looked bleak as the Wolves were tied with first-place Western Washington 1-1 in the final minute - just seconds away from seeing that goal vanish.
The the left foot of a senior that's been with the Wolves since the program started in 2022 made that goal a reality.
Harper Neubeck scored with just 31 seconds remaining to lift WOU to a 2-1 win over the Vikings at WOU Turf Field - making the Wolves GNAC co-champions with Seattle Pacific. More importantly, since WOU owns the tiebreaker with SPU - the Wolves will be the No. 1 seed in the three-team GNAC Championships next week in Burnaby, British Columbia.
WOU will take on the winner of SPU and WWU 11 a.m. Saturday with the champion claiming the conference's automatic berth.
As for Saturday's matchup, WOU (10-4-4 overall, 6-2-2 GNAC) took a 1-0 lead on WWU (8-7-3, 6-3-1) in the 20th minute when
Abraham Villalobos scored on an assist from
Yahir Ocampo Navarro.
The score remained that way until in the first minute of the second half when the Vikings scored to make it 1-1.
With the draw (or a win), the Vikings would've claimed the conference crown and it appeared it was heading that way as the match headed into the final minute.
But that's when
Ignacio Brandan found
Michael Divano down the right side of the penalty area, he tapped it back across the goal where Neubeck just edged a defender with his left foot to knock it in and let the celebration begin.