PORTLAND — The steady rain forced Wednesday’s Class A South boys soccer quarterfinal game between No. 1 South Portland and No. 8 Thornton Academy to be moved from the Red Riots’ home field to the turf at Portland’s Fitzpatrick Stadium.

The No. 8 Golden Trojans seemed to like the change of venue as they were able to hold the previously unbeaten Red Riots scoreless for 110 minutes and then secured the victory in penalty kicks to advance to Saturday’s semifinal round.

“The guys all came to play today,” said TA coach Andrew Carlson. “They bought in and trusted each other and just found a way to grind it out.”

After two scoreless overtime periods, the game came down to the nerve-wracking penalty kicks. Chase Pierce opened the PKs with a goal for Thornton Academy. Charlie Cronin responded for South Portland to make it 1-1 heading into the second of five rounds.

Owen Hey came through in the clutch for the Trojans on his try to make it 2-1 — and TA goalie Travis Snyder, who had been huge all night, would make an incredible save on South Portland’s next try.

TA’s Jose Toraya would put the Trojans up 3-1 with his kick, and all eyes would once again turn to Snyder in the TA goal.

Snyder made another stop to put the Trojans on the verge of victory.

“We were confident, I think the guys were confident in themselves, that we would be able to convert our shots. I think the real difference maker in the whole thing was Travis Snyder making two saves. I mean you don’t expect that to happen,” said Carlson. “The shooters are supposed to score and then you hope maybe they’ll miss or maybe the keeper gets lucky, but those were two solid saves. The first save on the second kicker was super dynamic, and then the one on the third kicker he stayed confident, he reacted and he got in the way of it … that’s the whole thing (with penalty kicks), you don’t care if you give up rebounds, all you’ve got to do is not let it get by you. It’s a whole different mentality.”

After Snyder made his second save, it gave Eric McCallum a chance to send the Trojans to the next round — and he did just that.

“We’ve been working on it since we knew we qualified. We work on it 5, 10, 15 minutes a day over the last maybe two weeks or so. We’ve gotten better and gained confidence … the guys have confidence in themselves and they trust their teammates to convert,” said Carlson.

Carlson was thrilled with the work of his defense all night long.

“The back three guys today — Zach Ahmida, Peter Zumar and Sammy Edborg — played outstanding, and clearly Travis played outstanding,” said Carlson, who saw his keeper make several tough saves. “He had two or three game-saving saves that I think South Portland in the past, during the season, you know getting to the SMAA Championship and winning that league title, they’ve gotten those goals, but Travis was there and our defense was there.” 

The Trojans will be right back at Fitzpatrick Stadium on Saturday for a semifinal showdown with the No. 4 Portland Bulldogs.

While Fitzpatrick may be Portland’s home turf, Carlson feels his team is pretty comfortable at Fitzy.

“We played at Fitzy a week ago Monday in the final game of the regular season against Portland and dropped a game late 2-1. Then we played there today and now we’re going to play there on Saturday, so I mean we will have played at Fitzy as much as Portland has played at Fitzy in the last two weeks. It’s still there home field, but maybe we’ll get a little bit more comfortable there,” said Carlson.

Carlson believes his team is playing its best soccer at the right time — and they are also very confident heading into Saturday’s showdown.

“I think the guys are really happy. It kind of reaffirms the belief in ourselves that we can play with those teams,” said Carlson, who told his team to celebrate Wednesday’s win, but quickly turn the page. “As I told the guys, it’s a great victory, and we enjoy it tonight and we enjoy it in school tomorrow, but when we go to training tomorrow, we’ve got another step to take.”