Ranked No. 1 in the NorCal regional, the Fresno City College men’s soccer team found themselves seconds away from being eliminated in a heartbreaking loss at home against Santa Rosa.

Cristian Alvarez had other ideas as he headed in the game-tying goal with five seconds of injury time remaining to tie the game at three and send it into overtime.

After receiving new life through the heroics of Alvarez, the Rams played Santa Rosa tough for two 15-minute periods of overtime. With the game still knotted up at three, it was time to decide who would secure their ticket to the state final four with penalty kicks.

Tyler McEowen and Cristian Alvarez knocked home their kicks for the Rams as Santa Rosa countered with two of their own from Tyler Hurst and Fred Fagundes. One kick remained and Fresno City College goalie Tadd Patrick stepped out of the box to try to send the Rams to Santa Clarita.

With one kick, Patrick erased the horror he endured in the box giving up three goals as Rams players stormed Patrick and celebrated the FCC’s return trip to the state final four.

Santa Rosa started the scoring early when Tyler Hurst beat the last defender on a pass from Mario Ramirez and shot it past Patrick to give the Bear Cubs a 1-0 lead twenty minutes into the game.

Santa Rosa kept the pressure on FCC as the Rams turned their defense up a notch. The Rams had chances to tie the game up, but couldn’t capitalize and went into half trailing by one goal.

The second half started off with a boom for the Bear Cubs.

Santa Rosa had possession of the ball first and found Hurst running wide down the field toward the FCC defense. Hurst was able to get by Rams defender Michael Mayberry and crossed a ball to Mario Ramirez who put Santa Rosa up 2-0 less than two minutes into the second half.

The Rams defense hunkered down after giving up the second goal and fought back to tie the game up with goals by Andrew Campbell off an assist from Alejandro Cristobal in the 60th minute and Michael Mayberry in the 72nd minute off an assist from Alvarez.

The Rams seemed poised to head into overtime with the game tied 2-2.

Three minutes after having the game tied up, Hurst once again got past the last layers of the FCC defense and knocked in his second goal of the game to give the Bear Cubs the lead once again at 3-2 in the 75th minute.

FCC fans were desperately pleading with the Rams players on the field to hurry and find a way to get the game tying goal.

As the final seconds of the game and the Rams season were ticking off the scoreboard, their prayers were answered.

In a moment that can’t even be scripted by a Disney movie, FCC’s Tyler McEowen sent the ball toward the goal hoping for the best.

That’s when Rams player Cristian Alvarez ran toward the crowd and positioned himself to have a shot at the ball.

Alvarez was where he needed to be and sent a header past Santa Rosa goalie Eli Ramirez to tie the game up at three and send it to overtime.

“I fell right when I headed the ball so I didn’t know if it went in or not,” Alvarez said. “I turned around and I saw everyone running toward me so that’s when I knew.”

Santa Rosa coach Marty Kinahan described the emotion in  the huddle as they headed into overtime.

“It was devastating,” Kinahan said. “We thought the game was over. We’ve been on the end of that negatively and positively. We’ve reached the state final one time on injury time, so we know what it feels like.”

The two teams played 30 minutes of scoreless overtime that sent the game into penalty kicks and an eventual Rams victory through the leg of Patrick.

Solberg talked about the roller coaster ride of emotions he felt  during the game.

“To rally back from that speaks volumes of our game and our team,” Solberg said. “It didn’t look like it was going to happen and then we got that extra goal with seconds left and it was meant to be today.”

Solberg described the feelings on the sideline as Alvarez tied the game up in the final seconds of the game.

“It was surreal just standing there watching it,” Solberg said. “The team was equivalent of the goal scored by Landon Donovan for the USA team [in the 2010 World Cup].”

The Rams will play in the state semifinals on Friday against the No. 2 team from the south College of the Canyons at 1 p.m. The winner of that game will face the winner of the Mt. San Antonio and West Valley game on Sunday for the state title.