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HOUSTON -- If the National Womens Soccer League finds the future to which it aspires, it might well produce greater champions than the Western New York Flash in the years ahead.But after the Flashs improbable, barely believable, last-minute escape and penalty shootout win over the Washington Spirit, it will be impossible to produce a champion that did more to earn the confetti angels the Flash players made on the field as darkness descended in Houston.Without a coach until weeks before the opening game in April, the Flash clinched the leagues final playoff berth after a win on the final day of the regular season. They then traveled the width and breadth of the country to play No. 1 seed Portland on its home field in a semifinal. There, in front of the largest crowd in the leagues admittedly short postseason history, the Flash squandered a two-goal lead then built another one to match it.On Sunday, without the coach banished for the final because of a red card in Portland, they fell behind in regulation, then again in overtime after pulling level once. They watched the minutes tick away against the team with the second-best record in the league. They played the 30 scheduled minutes of overtime.They played the 121st minute, at the referees discretion. And the 122nd minute. And the 123rd minute.Finally, Lynn Williams rose to meet a cross and headed home the tying goal in the 124th minute to force the deciding penalty shootout.People talk about teams of destiny, Western New York coach Paul Riley said. This was a team of destiny, for sure.The better team on the day?Washington players and coaches didnt think so -- not that the sentiment stirred much controversy. Western New York players and coaches agreed with the assessment. It wasnt a particularly compelling game for long stretches of regulation, but what compelling play there was came mostly from a Spirit team that built possession and harassed the Flashs back line.A deserving champion? How could a team travel a road more deserving of reward?Washington did everything possible to win the game. Rather than play the Flash on their favored terms, as Portland tried and failed a week earlier, Spirit coach Jim Gabarra adjusted to match the underdog. For the first time all season, he started neither Joanna Lohman nor Diana Matheson, two valuable veteran midfielders. He instead started three center backs, playing with a back three and pushing normal outside backs Ali Krieger and Caprice Dydasco (until Dydasco suffered a knee injury and was replaced by Alyssa Kleiner) forward in a 3-5-2.Although he said it was a secondary look the team had worked on for a long time, it was a bold roll of the dice to break out for the first extended look in the championship game. And it worked.For large majorities in the game, they were very ineffective in the attack, Gabarra said.Again, he got little argument from those on the other side. With three center backs, the Spirit had a numerical advantage on Williams and Jessica McDonald, the Western New York forwards who so tormented regular-season champion Portland a week earlier. With more possession, the Spirit also outnumbered the Flash in midfield for at least the first half.The Flash werent brilliant on the day. They got an early bolt of brilliance when Sam Mewis leveled the game at 1-1 shortly after Crystal Dunn put the Spirit in front in the first half. They got the late miracle equalizer from Williams. They got three saves from goalkeeper Sabrina DAngelo in the shootout -- enough to make Williams penalty kick the clincher.It wasnt a great overall performance. The brilliant bit was being on the field in the first place.The Flash flew home from Portland on a Sunday redeye and put their bags down at home mid-morning Monday. They trained in Buffalo on Tuesday, then left for Houston the next day. They watched the sunset in three time zones in four days and traveled more than 4,000 miles -- nearly 7,000 in less than a week, if you count the trip to Portland before the semifinal.Thats the nature of this league because the country is so big, McCall Zerboni said. When you look at the leagues in Europe and stuff, they dont travel as much. They dont travel those distances. Thats the way the cookie crumbles.But again, the will of this team, nothing is going to slow us down.Plenty slowed them down a season earlier. Although not the leagues worst team in 2015, the Flash missed the playoffs by a proverbial mile and were every bit as discordant as might be imagined, as they conceded 10 more goals than they scored. A veteran who had a rocky tenure under the weight of high expectations in Portland, Riley was perfectly suited in time and place to again become the underdog. From the minor details of food and improved travel from the teams Buffalo base to its home venue in sort-of-nearby Rochester to the skill development of rising stars such as Williams, Mewis, Abby Dahlkemper and Jaelene Hinkle, it worked.As soon as Paul came in, hes such a players coach and was really just all for us, Dahlkemper said. He listened to us. He fixed the things that needed to be fixed in order to be in this situation. Even off the field, players were together. We love each other, and you can just tell the union off the field translates straight on. We just believe in each other.So it was that a team that made such use of McDonalds long throw-in during the postseason saw its season hinge on a short throw to McDonald from Hinkle in the final minute of overtime -- no time for anything but that. With space all around her, a rare positional lapse from the Spirit, McDonald curled in a high arcing cross toward the back post.Rising between two defenders at the other end of the arc, goalkeeper Kelsey Wys made the decision to come meet the ball. Williams said it was a now or never moment. That led to an understandable thought when she saw the ball make its way into the goal.Holy crap, I scored.?Then came the realization of just how late the Flash left it.First, I was like, Lets go get another one, Williams said. Then I realized, unless we get one of those crazy, two-second goals, its probably not going to happen for us. So prepare for PKs.As was the case a week earlier in Portland, the result left the possibility of one result overshadowing a seasons worth of success. In this case, the result was officially a draw and not even a loss. The final seconds and ensuing penalty shootout certainly left Crystal Dunn unjustly in the shadows after she scored two goals.In very nearly adding an NWSL title to the U-20 World Cup and NCAA titles she earlier claimed, Dunn played like the player Williams displaced as MVP. After a regular season in which she scored just two goals, willingly taking on a different role that Gabarra said he hoped would continue her evolution into one of the best players in the world, it was sweet redemption.Until it turned bittersweet in the blink of an eye in the 124th minute.As strange as it sounds for one of the most improbable escapes from the most improbable of finalists, those confetti angels were everything the Flash deserved.Air Max 90 2018 Discount . 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Reassurance came from Paul Tesori, his caddie and close friend whose newborn son is in intensive care in a Florida hospital. "Paul sent me a text this morning, just told me he loved me and wanted to go out and fight as hard as I would any other day," Simpson said Sunday after doing just that.STILLWATER, Okla. -- The officiating mistake was a doozy -- and it cannot be fixed. The play that followed was even more astonishing.One of the oddest endings imaginable left Oklahoma State stunned and Central Michigan celebrating.A misinterpreted rule extended the game when it should have been over and allowed the Chippewas to score a wild winning touchdown on a Hail Mary and lateral -- yes, both -- that covered half the field for an astonishing 30-27 upset of No. 22 Oklahoma State on Saturday.Oklahoma State tried to kill the final 4 seconds of the game by throwing the ball away on fourth down, but the Cowboys were penalized for intentional grounding, which is a loss of down penalty. Rules state that the game cannot end on an accepted live-ball penalty, referee Tim ODey of the Mid-American Conference, CMUs league, said.Theres an exception to the rule that says if enforcement of the foul involves a loss of down, then that brings the game to an end, ODey told a pool reporter.ODey said after conferring with NCAA rules committee secretary Rogers Redding after the game, the crew determined the extension should not have happened.But the final result stood. Article 3b of the NCAA rulebook states: When the referee declares that the game is ended, the score is final.Despite the error, this will not change the outcome of the contest, Bill Carollo, the NCAAs coordinator of football officials, said in a statement released by the MAC.That did not satisfy Oklahoma State athletic director Mike Holder.We had conversations with everyone that could help us understand the situation and do something about the outcome. We were told the result is final and there is nothing we can do about it, Holder said in a statement. In my mind, it is incomprehensible that a misapplication of the rules after time has expired cant be corrected.Big 12 Commissioner Bob Bowlsby said in a text to the AP: The game is final and errors can only be corrected during the course of the game. Very unfortunate.Corey Willis scored the winning touchdown after grabbing a lateral from Jesse Kroll at the Oklahoma State 12 and fighting his sway into the end zone.Oklahoma State (1-1) thought it had won when Mason Rudolph threw the ball away on fourth down as the clock expired, instead of just taking a knee and risking giving the ball back to Central Michigan. But it backfired but after the officials conferred, they assessed an intentional grounding penalty and gave Central Michigan another play.Thats a tough onee.dddddddddddd Just so everyone knows, I was the one who called the passing play, said OSU coach Mike Gundy. To be honest with you, I never even thought of intentional grounding being called at that point in the game. As much time as we put into end of game situations that never really crossed my mind. Unfortunately, thats a difficult way to learn a hard lesson.Cooper Rush lofted up a Hail Mary pass that hit Kroll just inside the 10. As Kroll was being taken down, he pitched it back to Willis at about the 12, who cut across the field and barely managed to score while being dragged down.To be honest, I actually had a missed assignment on that, I wasnt supposed to be right there, but it all worked for the better, said Willis. We know Jesse Kroll is going to go up and get the ball every time, its just something we practice all the time and we executed it.Coach John Bonamego said: Its an improbable finish, but its a situation that we practiced and rehearsed. We were able to execute and pull out the win.Central Michigan fans might have been having flashbacks to the Bahamas Bowl from two seasons ago, when the Chips covered almost the length of the field on a long pass and lateral play to make it a one-point game with no time left against Western Kentucky. In that fabulous finish, Central Michigan went for 2 and the win and did not convert. This time around, the Chippewas (2-0) were able run off with the victory.Oklahoma State fans were livid, and they can now relate to Duke fans who watched their team lose a game on a multilateral kickoff return touchdown to Miami last season that the Atlantic Coast Conference later said should not have counted. Or maybe go back to 1990, when officials mistakenly gave Colorado five downs to score the game-winning touchdown against Missouri in the waning seconds.Central Michigan is unlikely to go on to win a national title the way those Buffaloes did, but it will still go down as one of the biggest wins in school history.THE TAKEAWAYCentral Michigan: Never quit on the Chippewas.Oklahoma State: The Cowboys will rightfully be upset by the bad call, but Gundy will be questioned for throwing on his final play.UP NEXTCentral Michigan: The Chippewas return home to face UNLV.Oklahoma State: The Cowboys play their third straight home game, hosting Pittsburgh.---AP college football website: collegefootball.ap.org ' ' '