Slidell Youth Soccer Club’s U11 Sonics’ Janusz Wojcik scored the eventual championship goal in the second overtime of a 2-1 victory at the Disney International Cup finals Saturday at Disney’s Wide World of Sports.

The contest was tied 1-1. The Sonics and Houston Galactics had played a scoreless five-minute overtime period and it appeared the game was headed to penalty kicks. In fact, Sonics’ coach Jeff Dunlap had already begun writing down his PK shooters.

But with 40-seconds left, center striker Wojcik changed the script. The Little Oak Elementary School sixth grader accepted a pass from right-winger Connor Damare and found the back of the net.

“We had a pass from the right side to me. I found the left corner open and I fired at it because there were defenders there that could rebound it in. The shot bounced over a defender and into the left corner.”

Wojcik said he was happy and relieved the ball went in.

In the title game, the Sonics, who finished 29-6-4, took a 1-0 lead when Damare scored. Houston tied things up about five minutes into the second half, which forced the overtime. The Sonics had to hold on for 40-seconds following Wojcik’s goal.

Coach Dunlap said it was the best tournament they’ve gone to competition wise.

“Any team was capable of beating any team on any day,” Dunlap said. “We struggled quite a lot through our pool play (1-2). I think it really hurt us that we hadn’t played a game since the end of April. This was our first game in several months and our rust really showed. The boys responded nicely. We kind of backed our way into the knockout rounds by virtue of a lot of teams tying and us picking up a win. The boys played outstanding. They started peaking at the right time. They played very well as a team and they got the job done. I’m very very proud of them.”

The Sonics’ flight featured 12 teams from all over the world. Games had a pair of 30-minute halves.

Wojcik said it was different facing those squads.

“The skill level was a lot higher than around Louisiana. They were a lot faster and they had more ball skills than I usually see,” Wojcik said.

The Sonics struggled in pool play. They opened with a 6-0 loss to the Brandon Soccer Academy out of Florida.

They rebounded and collected a 3-1 victory over the Cayman Islands with Christian Garcia tallying two goals and Wojcik adding another.

Their final pool play contest was a 6-0 loss to Brazil in a contest that was scoreless at halftime.

They made the semifinals and found themselves down 4-1 at halftime against the Brandon Soccer Academy.

The Sonics trailed 2-0 before Wojcik trimmed the lead in half before Brandon Academy added two more before the break.

The Sonics had a long road back and only 30 minutes to complete it. The Sonics responded from a rough first half and reached their destination, scoring five unanswered second-half goals to advance to the finals.

Garcia scored the initial one, making it 4-2. Then the goals started coming. Damare pulled them to within one. Logan Klotz tied the game before Wojcik gave them the lead. Damare gave them a little breathing room with the final tally.

Wojcik talked about how they were able to make the comeback.

“My team finally put one in and we were so happy, we kept putting more-and-more in until we finally put the last one in to take the lead. Then we put one more in to keep the score high,” Wojcik said.

The win put them in the finals, which featured an exciting match against the Houston Galactics.

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