Big East Semifinals: Adam Lysak Saves The Day

In the first of the two semifinals, Georgetown and Providence combined to fire off 34 shots, including 12 in the 20 minutes of overtime. As you can guess from the "overtime" in the previous sentence without the use of the word "goal," that match ended in a scoreless draw. Once things went to penalty kicks, all of a sudden goals couldn't stop going in. Out of the 12 penalty kick attempts, nine of them found the back of the net. Providence's Keasel Broome and Georgetown's Tomas Gomez each stopped a lone attempt, which covers 11 of the attempts. The 12th? That one went high over the crossbar off the foot of Georgetown's Alex Muyl, thereby sending Providence on to the finals.

So, without a goal officially scored in the first 110 minutes of semifinal action, Marquette and Butler took to the pitch at PPL Park. The offense output didn't slow down just because the teams had changed, though. The first half saw 15 shots, with five of them making their way all the way to the keepers for saves, four by MU's Charlie Lyon and one by BU's Jon Dawson. The Golden Eagles took an advantage in the second half, outshooting the Bulldogs 11-8. Eight more saves were made, with Dawson carrying the majority of the work with five stops.

Yet again, no goals were scored through 90 minutes, so onwards to overtime.

Then.

Finally. (skip to the 1:40 mark)

After 118 minutes of scoreless soccer, Adam Lysak was in the right place at the absolutely perfect time. When the deflection of Louis Bennett II's shot landed right in front of Lysak in the 98th minute, he lofted it up and over the outstretched arms of Dawson, and finally, FINALLY, PPL Park saw a goal with the clock ticking.

Up Next: Marquette and Providence both advance to Sunday's Big East Championship game. The match will be televised on Fox Sports 2 at 11:30am Central, and the winner earns an automatic bid to the 2013 College Cup.