“I was thrilled,” Amoah said. “I couldn’t believe I got there. The emotions were all at me, I saw my teammates coming at me and I just couldn’t believe I shot that. Amazing moment. Amazing moment.”

Amoah capitalized off of a scramble in front of the net for his goal to advance New Ulm to a semifinals match at No. 2 Mound Westonka on Thursday.

“I think Jackson [Ocampo] crossed that ball,” Amoah said. “Levi [Johnson] had a little touch on it with his head and I was right there to hit the ball in.”

New Ulm’s defense stood strong the entire game, and when a shot was allowed, goalkeeper Austin Krohn made the save every time, coming away with 12 saves on the day.

Staff photo by Ari Selvey New Ulm’s Methodious Amoah defends a Mankato West player in a Section 2AA boys playoff soccer game Tuesday at New Ulm High School. Amoah scored the game-winning goal in overtime.

“They were rock-solid,” New Ulm head coach Tim Plocher said. “The last four games we didn’t play the best, and I told them we had to make sure we had each other’s backs and we covered where our weakness were, and they did a really good job of that. There were times where we had a guy come up, and there was an opportunity where Cole [Frederick] had a couple of shots coming up and our midfielder dropped into support.

“I think it was Methodious, he had sprinted back and forth so much that asked Tyler [Fischer] to go up the field so he could take a break. So Junior [Methodious] played defense and Tyler was playing up top, so that was really cool to see.”

For Plocher, the win carried an extra amount of significance, as Mankato West was the team that ended his soccer career with New Ulm when he was with the program.

“Eleven years ago, Mankato West ended my senior year,” he said. “I don’t like when people lose, especially when it’s the end and some people move on and never play soccer again. But it’s good for the guys to have another game.”

Amoah said in order to score the game-winning goal, he needed to fall back on the soccer player he was.

“I had to get out of my head,” he said. “They were in my head the entire game, and I had to keep on playing no matter what, because they knew they were in my head. I had to keep on playing no matter what, and I needed to score that.”

The win snapped a four-game winless streak for the Eagles, who started the season with 12 consecutive wins but fell to 12-2-2 before the playoffs. Now New Ulm can find its identity once again as it tries to make a run in the playoffs.

“We kind of lost our identity for the last four games,” Plocher said. “We just haven’t been playing our best soccer. Playing these guys, we had already beaten them 3-1 earlier in the season, and they knew where our strengths were going into this. It was a great game.”

West started the match with the wind at its back, and it used that to take the advantage on offense, putting seven shots on goal to New Ulm’s one in the first half. Still, New Ulm had a few strong opportunities early, with Josh Shaneman and Logan Goblirsch both just missing on their shots in the first 15 minutes. West’s strongest threat to score in the first half came on a breakaway with seven minutes remaining in the half, but Krohn made the charging save to prevent the goal.

Going into the second half, Ocampo almost connected with Amoah for a goal, but the shot went just wide in the 48th minute. Goblirsch hit the crossbar on a shot in the 53rd minute and another one on goal in the 59th minute but was unable to score on either shot as regulation ended.

Levi Johnson had perhaps the best chance by either team on the night up to that point six minutes into the first overtime period, putting a shot on goal and working through a scramble at the net, but no other New Ulm players were in front of the net and the Eagles were unable to capitalize. A shot by Amoah under a minute in the first overtime period missed just right, sending the game into the second overtime period.

Twenty-four seconds later, Amoah got that shot to go, ending the game and sending New Ulm to Mound Westonka.

“We’ve got to keep the energy up no matter what,” Amoah said. “We cannot come out flat. This game we came out pretty strong and I loved that from our team. We played amazing no matter what and we kept on playing no matter what. That’s what it’s going to take, over and over and over again.”