OGDEN — St. Joseph Catholic High School senior captain Jonathan Ramirez did not score the winning goal in the Jayhawks’ 4-1 victory over Waterford in the quarterfinals of the 2A state boys soccer tournament.

But he may never, ever record a bigger, more important point in his life than his tying goal on Saturday.

No. 6 seed Waterford (11-6) had just taken a 1-0 lead in the 59th minute and the No. 3 Jayhawks were in danger of an earlier-than-anticipated exit from the playoffs.

“Honestly, don’t panic, try to keep calm as much as possible. Making sure we’re not stressing out and play our style,” Ramirez said of his approach at that time. “We had 20 minutes left, anything can happen in 20 minutes. We for sure could get a goal and tie.”

A little over five minutes later, Ramirez footed a pass from Armando Escobedo and hit his shot to knot it 1-1 in the 64th minute and relieve some of the pressure.

“I saw the ball come to me and I said ‘I want this,'” Ramirez said. “I dribbled, shot it, saw the ball go in and I was super excited. It was a relief to tie the game; I felt that broke a lot of the tension.”

From there, the floodgates opened as the Jayhawks (15-1) scored a total of four goals in 12 minutes to win going away.

“I think that (first) goal put us in the right mindset. We came back stronger and wanted to put a couple in the net and show them we were the better team on the field today,” junior striker Ricky Aparicio said.

Aparicio actually took home honors with the winning goal, making it 2-1 just 2 minutes, 38 seconds after the Ramirez score.

“I was just reading that a couple of times they leave the back post open, so even my dad in the stands was telling me to watch the back post and make the right move,” Aparicio said. “I listened to him and made the move behind and we played the ball in; ‘double D’ (Edward Ramirez) hooks it, there was a deflection off the keeper, I’m lucky enough to be there for the tap in.”

After a brief pause in the onslaught, Escobedo scored a brace with goals at the 72nd and 76th minutes for the final margin of victory.

Jonathan Ramirez played after missing a game Wednesday due to a severe ankle injury that required a lot of rest and rehab coming into Saturday.

“Ice, elevation, not playing, staying off of it as much as possible,” Ramirez said. “Right now I have it wrapped. It doesn’t hurt now because of the adrenaline, but later it will ache a little bit.”

Saturday turned out to be a redemption game for Aparicio. In a strange twist of fate, the Jayhawks also played Waterford in the quarterfinals last year. He received two yellow cards in that contest and had to sit out the semifinal match because of it.

This year, his winning goal sends his team into the semifinals at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday at Juan Diego High School, against the winner of No. 2 Gunnison Valley versus No. 7 Millard.

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