It was an early momentum swing.
The Helias Crusaders looked to have scored a goal in the opening minutes of Monday night's game against the Jefferson City Jays. But the ball was ruled to have not crossed the goal line.
Just a couple of minutes later, the Jays got on the board with a penalty kick and they went on to post a 5-1 victory against the Crusaders at Eddie Horn Field.
"We needed to have an answer pretty quick because they really could have grabbed the emotional edge," Jefferson City Scott Blake said. "Jefferson City and Helias games are always like that, the fans really get into it and the play seems to follow the crowd.
"You could feel that they would have gotten a spark if that one went in."
The Crusaders thought they had taken the early lead.
"I don't think they were in position to make that call, that ball was across the goal," Helias coach Jay Hebenheimer said. "But that's the way our season is going, we're not getting the breaks.
"In a game like this, we need something like getting that goal to happen for us."
Jefferson City took the lead on the penalty kick after Helias was whistled for a foul in front of its net. Will Kuster put the kick into the lower right corner of the net to make it 1-0 a little more than six minutes into the game.
"Those kind of things will change the course of a game," Hebenheimer said. "It didn't cost us the game, but it will change the mentality of players on the field."
The Jays doubled their lead midway through the half when Bassil Ahmed dribbled the ball for about the final third of the field before lining a shot into the net to make it 2-0.
Jefferson City got on the board again with a little more than nine minutes to go in the half when Ethan Blake fed Kuster in front of the net, where the senior knocked it in to give the Jays a 3-0 halftime advantage.
Helias came out with a renewed attitude to start the second half.
"We shook them up a little bit at halftime, we got on them pretty good," Hebenheimer said.
Helias got on the board just three minutes into the half on a goal by Sam Conley that made it 3-1. And while that was their only goal, the Crusaders had the better of play for the opening 20 minutes of the half.
"The first 20 minutes of the second half was really good," Hebenheimer said.
Scott Blake took responsibility for the way the Jays started the second half
"I have to own the way we played in the first 20 minutes of the second half," he said. "We need to try some things, even in the middle of October we're still trying to find things we can do and that was the wrong moment to do that.
"I opened us up when we didn't need to. We were not comfortable at the start of the second half and that's on me."
Jefferson City got a pair of goals about 90 seconds apart to close the scoring.
With 14:34 remaining, Ahmed tallied his second goal of the contest.
"Bassil's always been dangerous from the wide position and he's scoring goals from there," Blake said. "He's super athletic and can run by people. He's bought into being a team player."
That was followed by an Ethan Blake goal off a rebound with 13:08 left.
"It was like Christmas for them, they know where we're at physically," Hebenheimer said. "Good, there's your present. Open it and enjoy it."
Helias (6-11-1) will play Thursday at Marshall.
Jefferson City (13-3-0) will host the Art Firley Classic this Friday and Saturday. Jefferson City will play Blue Valley (Kan.) Northwest at 2 p.m. Friday and Marquette at 10 a.m. Saturday.
"We're expecting a pair of tough matches," Blake said.
In Monday's JV game limited to one half, Jefferson City defeated Helias 2-0. The Jays are now 13-0-1.