FORT WORTH, TX - The magic of sports is from the first second to the last, no one knows how a story will play out and each story plays out differently - no two games are identical. Tuesday night at Martin Field, Texas Wesleyan Men's Soccer (2-9, 1-1 SAC) finally earned some sports magic off the foot of Julius Williams. His goal with 3.2 seconds left helped Texas Wesleyan defeat Southwestern Christian (3-5, 1-1 SAC) 3-2.

As the clock ticked under 10 seconds, Williams dashed past defenders on the fans' side of the field and tried to squeeze a shot in. Goalkeeper Gerard Espinalt got a hand on the ball and slowed the shot, but the muscle put behind it saw the ball trickle past Espinalt. As the ball rolled towards goal, the clock continued to tick - straight out of a Hollywood movie. An attempt to thwart the goal was made by an Eagle defender, the ball rolled into the net for the go-ahead score sending the Martin Field crowd into a frenzy.

After being denied goal in his first 27 shots of the season, hitting the crossbar multiple times along the away, the agony of not seeing movement in the back of the net is over for Williams. The transfer from Laredo College has his first goal as a Ram. It's the first time Texas Wesleyan has scored a goal in the 90th minute of a game to take the lead - records of goal time stamps are only readily available through 2009.

The effort to climb back into the match was, in some ways, even more glorious. Southwestern Christian took a 2-1 lead on a header in the 69th minute and while the Rams could have hung their heads, TXWES responded, tired of being the team on the wrong side of luck. Instead, the Rams took it to their opponent, unwilling to be denied. Claudio Barraza earned a penalty kick after a foul in the box by SCU in the 81st minute, gracefully sticking the PK in the back of the net to tie the game. It would be the first of four shots in the final ten minutes of the comeback.

After a ball-control first half that helped stifle the Eagles' forward momentum offensively, the game opened up in the second half but Texas Wesleyan already had a little momentum. Carlos Mendez earned his second goal of the season and quite possibly the prettiest of his career - an incredibly well-placed ball from 30 yards out that literally found the bottom corner of goal in the 14th minute on just the second shot of the night for the Rams, after SCU had already taken six, two of which scraped the left post.

TXWES goalkeeper Bastian Blumenberg had another nine saves, including an incredible full extension on a corner kick in the 47th minute. Blumenberg has 70 saves - fourth in the nation. The program record, for now, is safely Micha Buccholz', who had 123 saves during the 1997 campaign.

Oklahoma Panhandle State is next on the road October 4. The Aggies are coming off a 2-1 win over Oklahoma City in the wide open Sooner Athletic Conference - four of the eight conference matches played so far have been decided by one goal. It was the first win over Southwestern Christian since 2014 and the first time the Rams have ever taken down the Eagles at Martin Field. 

It wasn't the first time Texas Wesleyan scored a game-winning goal late in regulation. On the contrary, the Rams have had a knack for late game miracles in the past decade, especially during the first week of October:

October 28, 2010: SAGU 0, TXWES 1 - game-winning goal, 87:36
October 6, 2011: Northwood 1, TXWES 2 - game-winning goal, 86:38
September 29, 2012: Texas at Brownsville 1, TXWES 2 - game-winning goal, 85:14
September 18, 2015: St. Thomas (Texas) 1, TXWES 2 - game-winning goal, 87:04
 October 4, 2016: Mid-America Christian 1, TXWES 2 - game-winning goal, 87:34
September 5, 2018: Texas College 2, TXWES 3 - game-winning goal, 85:33