Emmaus soccer coach John Cari likes a good, exciting soccer game as much as the next guy. On Monday though, he thought his team made its 2-1 double overtime win against Northampton more exciting than it had to be.

The Konkrete Kids (6-2-3 EPC, 7-2-3 overall) broke through for a goal with just 2:37 left in regulation to tie the game 1-1.

Aaron Eberts fed a pinpoint pass to Russell King, who used his speed to hold off an Emmaus defender and fire a shot to the lower left side of the goal, just past goalie Alex Tomasello to tie the game.

Emmaus’ first goal came off a header by Jake Perry, who took a feed from Alex Aiken. Perry put the shot past Northampton’s Brady Rimple with 9:20 left in the first half to put Emmaus up 1-0. The lead held up until King’s heroics late in the second half.

“I thought we got stretched a little bit,” said Cari. “We came off of a corner that went all the way through and they were able to bang pretty far and King was able to outrun it and I thought he gave a little bit of physicality to give himself some space and did a good job of finishing it.”

Emmaus (9-2-1, 10-3-1) dominated the game throughout both halves with 22 shots – eight of them on goal – compared to just four shots on goal for Northampton.

The loss was the second of the season for the Konkrete Kids, both of which have come to Emmaus. The Hornets have had to mix-and-match at times because of injuries which have kept them from being as dominant as they might normally be.

“We haven’t been the dominant team,” said Cari. “I think we show moments of being that but we just aren’t there. We need to be sharper and more consistent.”

In the first overtime, Emmaus again dominated but was unable to score. In the second overtime, just about at the halfway mark, Jake Perry fired a shot that bounced off of the post and caromed out to senior Creyn Muthard, who didn’t miss when he played the rebound past Rimple.

“Honestly, my eye was on the goal and watching where everybody was positioned, my eye wasn’t even focused on it,” said Muthard. “It was just a split-second reaction. I saw the ball come in and I got my left foot on it for the goal.”

Muthard pointed out that the win gives his team a lot of momentum as it heads into the final stretch of the regular season, which includes showdowns with Parkland (8-2-2, 8-3-2), Whitehall (5-5-1, 6-6-1) and Central Catholic (5-4-3, 6-5-3). Emmaus beat Whitehall in its first meeting of the season in a game marred by five yellow cards and two ejections. The Hornets dropped a 3-1 game to the Vikings last week.

“This was a bigger game than the Parkland game, because they had only lost one game and that was against us,” said Muthard. “They were coming for it and after they scored that goal, it was on. It really is going to give momentum to Parkland to come in here and beat us.”

Parkland downed Emmaus 1-0 earlier in the season, but the Hornets are much stronger since that loss that put them at 1-2 in the early going. Muthard and his teammates are armed and ready to face their rivals.

“I can’t wait,” he said. “We’re all pumped and we all want to win and we’ve got the same goal. We take it one game at a time but that Parkland game is always big and certainly, that will be the case this year. This win tonight was huge to give us momentum.”

The showdown with Parkland is Wednesday is at Memorial Field at 6:30 p.m.