DEKALB, Ill.  – Junior Adrian Coardos (Evanston, Ill./Niles North) scored in the 97th minute to lift the Northern Illinois University men's soccer team to a 3-2 over victory on Friday night (Aug. 25) in the season opener. Coardos' golden goal sealed a victory for new Huskie head coach Ryan Swan in his first game leading the Huskies.

"There's still tears in my eyes from that one," Swan said. "I thought Adrian had a fantastic game today, Logan Hatter came in and has a fantastic change of pace so when we won the ball we knew we were going to be dangerous with that combination."

Sophomore Logan Hatter (Avon, Ind./Avon) had not seen the field until the 96th minute when he entered the game with about 4:20 left on the clock in overtime. That didn't stop him from setting up Coardos for the game winner in only 35 seconds worth of playing time.

The fireworks in this game came at the beginning and at the end of the game with the first three goals in the game coming in the first nine minutes of the contest. In the fifth minute, junior Nicholas Haas (Waukegan, Ill./Warren Township) got the Huskies on the board with a shot ripped into the upper-left corner of the goal set up by sophomore Christian Molina (Katy, Texas/Mayde Creek). 

The goal was the first for Haas in his NIU career. 

DePaul tied the game about three minutes later through Istvan Wilhelms but the Huskies answered back with a goal just 62 seconds later to regain the lead in the ninth minute. Junior Giovanni Pacheco (Pasadena, Texas/Pasadena) scored from the right side, sliding the ball past the DePaul goalkeeper Quentin Low with an assist from junior Kevin Rodriguez (Pasadena, Texas/Deer Park).

Pacheco's goal was the second of his collegiate career, his first since the 2015 season. 

As the game went on, the physicality and the emotions ramped up as a total of 11 yellow cards were handed out in the game with DePaul getting seven cards and NIU receiving four. The final NIU yellow card was costly when a hand ball gave DePaul a free-kick just outside of the box with four seconds left.  Philipp Konigstein stepped up and buried the set piece for the Blue Demons to send the game into overtime. 

"It had been an emotional game all the way through with the way the scoring went," Swan said. "After we took the lead, I never felt that we were in too much danger but to give the ball up with four seconds left was really a kick in the gut."

In the seventh minute of the first overtime, Corados netted the first goal of his career, off a feed from Hatter, as the Huskies celebrated a season-opening victory. 

NIU goalkeeper Drew Donnally (Plainfield, Ill./Plainfield North) made five saves in the match while earning his fifth career victory. 

The Huskies will return to action next weekend when they travel to Evansville, Ind., to compete in the ProRehab Aces Soccer Classic. NIU will face Bradley on Friday, Sept. 1, before meeting the host, Evansville, on Sunday, Sept. 3.