Warsaw sophomore Lindsay Bruick (6) battles Columbia City's Katie Stroup for control of the ball Monday during the first-round matchup at the Huntington North Girls' Soccer Sectional. Photo by Gary Nieter, Times-Union

HUNTINGTON - The winner of Monday night's soccer sectional game between Warsaw and Columbia City was scheduled to play Saturday in the championship game.

Instead, both teams will play Saturday.

No, both didn't advance to the championship game. Monday night's game ended in a 1-1 tie, so the teams have to finish it on Saturday.

Both scores came in the second half. The teams played the two 40-minute regulation halves, then played two seven-minute halves in the first overtime. The game came down to penalty kicks for the second overtime, and that's when it was suspended because of darkness.

Warsaw and Columbia City played to a 0-0 tie in the regular season, so this low score was not a surprise.

Columbia City scored first when senior forward Miranda Saggars scored on a one-on-one against Warsaw goalkeeper Sara Barber with about 18 minutes left in the second half.

Warsaw answered within five minutes.

Warsaw's Bobbi Wildman was on the outside wing, and she laid the ball off to Kim Cowan, who had a shot near the top of the penalty box. Cowan delivered a low goal shot into the corner to tie the game.

"That's what we call the five-minute window," Warsaw coach Brent Wildman said. "Either the scoring team will score a second time, or the other team will score within that period of time. That proved it out here tonight."

"I thought we were very capable of coming back to score. We dominated the offensive game. We had only one defensive lapse. She (Saggars) got a run on the goalie and finished it, which was a very nice job by their forward. She's pretty good.

"Our girls played some of the best ball they've played all year."

In the end, the soccer game took a back seat to a little controversy. The game was scheduled to start at 4:15 p.m. Warsaw arrived at 4:10 and asked for 20 minutes to warm up. The game started at 4:35, 20 minutes late.

Warsaw wanted to finish the penalty kicks last night, even though there were no lights, making the ball barely visible. Columbia City wanted to finish the game Saturday. The officials agreed with Columbia City, citing darkness.

"We voted to shoot it out here and now," Wildman said. "We came prepared. We had practiced our shootout, we had our lineup - it's already written in the book. Our first five, our second five. We were prepared.

"It was also very obvious the Columbia City team had never done the shootout. They didn't know the rules, and they were not prepared at all."

Columbia City said if Warsaw would have been on time, maybe none of this would have happened.

"It was the right thing to do from our standpoint," Columbia City coach Bill Duffy said of playing Saturday. "Obviously, they weren't happy.

"If they would have been here on time, we wouldn't have been in a position where our goalie couldn't see the ball. The officials asked for our input, and we gave it to them."

While Columbia City blamed Warsaw, Warsaw blamed the 4:15 start time, saying it was too early.

Both schools agreed that the sectional needed to be played at a place that has lights.

"The point is, the rules state the games are really supposed to start at 7 o'clock, under the lights," Wildman said. "There's no way we can get here from Warsaw - we can't leave school early - at the 4:15 starting time they asked for."

Soccergate will continue at 10 a.m. Saturday, when Warsaw and Columbia City finish their game on penalty kicks. The winner then follows that game by facing the winner of Wednesday's Huntington North/Homestead game in the sectional championship. [[In-content Ad]]