Chris Archer scored on a penalty kick in the third minute of overtime to complete a stirring High Point comeback and give the Panthers a 3-2 win over Liberty Tuesday night in Big South men's soccer action in Lynchburg.
Luke Lemanski and Daniel Walsh also scored for the Panthers, who battled back from a 2-0 deficit to claim their first Big South win of the season, and did it while playing a man down for the final 25 minutes of the match.
HPU improves to 6-8-1 overall and 1-4-0 in the Big South, while the Flames drop to 6-8-1 overall and 2-3-0 in Conference play.
It was the third straight overtime contest for the Panthers.
"Our team put up a great fight and was very determined on the road against a good team," HPU head coach Peter Broadley said. "We kept wearing them down even though we only had 10 men. I'm very proud of our effort to come back after a slow start."
Liberty jumped on the scoreboard in the 19th minute of the contest when Adrian Bumbut moved into the clear and found Kyle Cupid with a pass in the box which the freshman netted for a 1-0 Liberty advantage.
The Flames added to their lead in the 32nd minute when Osei Telesford netted his second goal of the season. Cupid and Jonathan Burklo assisted on the play.
Down 2-0 at halftime, High Point would cut the lead in half in the 67th minute of play when Lemanski put back a rebound off the crossbar. Alex Thompson and Gordon Smith assisted on the goal for the Panthers.
Minutes later, Thompson would be sent off with a red card, forcing the Panthers to play a man down for the remainder of the match. But High Point knotted the game, 2-2, at the 70:43 mark when Walsh scored off a rebound of a Cole Atkins shot.
Neither team would score in a tightly-contested final 20 minutes of regulation.
The Panthers ended the game at 92:57 of overtime when Archer converted a penalty kick opportunity after a Flame foul in the box.
For the match, Liberty outshot High Point, 16-11, although the Panthers had the only two shots in overtime.
Matt Long had two saves in more than 37 minutes of relief in goal for HPU.
"It was an interesting game," Broadley said. "We really didn't play well in the first half. We started slow and they took it to us. They're a good attacking team and scored two very good goals in the first.
"But in the second half we tried some different tactics and it seemed to work. We played some longer balls forward, got in behind them, scored, got an equalizer and came out with a good win. Hopefully this will set us up well to play some good games down the stretch."
High Point travels to Campbell on Saturday to take on the Camels. Game time is 3:00 pm.
