APEX - In a game that was full of passion, it wasn’t emotion that overwhelmed Green Hope sophomore goalkeeper Lisa Armstrong and sent her to her knees.

It wasn’t even the fact her team had just moved into first place outright in the Tri-Nine Conference with Wednesday night’s 3-2 overtime victory against Apex.

Instead, it was illness. She was sick and had been for six days leading up to the big game. But she couldn’t let that stop her. After 100 minutes of standing tall in goal for the Falcons, Armstrong was bent over, coughing and trying to catch her breath.

“At times, you just want to fall over, but you look in front of you and you’ve got all the people who mean the world to you and you can’t let them down,” Armstrong said.

Apex has won at least a share of the conference title in 19 of the previous 20 seasons, but Green Hope is in position to win it outright with one week left in the season.

“The fact she was able to go in there and play at that level she did was (amazing),” Green Hope coach Bobby Peterson said.

While Armstrong and the defense held Apex’s offense in check for the most part, it was another sophomore who provided Green Hope the heroics of the winning goal.

Alexis Shaffer scored with 3:23 left in the first overtime on an assist from Maya Worth. The teams did not score in the second overtime.

Shaffer also had assisted on the game’s first goal to fellow sophomore Maura McDonnell, who put the Falcons up with 21:24 left in the first half.

Apex countered almost five minutes after Green Hope had first scored, with senior Nikki Bowser tapping in a goal after a corner kick and two ensuing headers by her teammates.

The Cougars were playing in their first home game since longtime junior varsity head coach and varsity assistant Gene Daniels – “Coach D” – died of a heart attack at 47.

Apex players broke their huddle by saying “D” and pointing to the sky after scoring, and they wore , black armbands with the letter “D.”

Before the game, Green Hope’s captains presented each Apex captain with sunflowers. The Cougars handed the flowers to Daniels’ sister and mother in the stands.

Even some of Green Hope’s players knew Daniels from Salem Middle School, where he was athletics director and teacher.

“I feel like any other team out here, Apex wins that game. We just happened to have some bounces and have some things go our way,” Green Hope coach Bobby Peterson said. “We knew what they were going through, and the fact they were able to come out and play as hard as that – we appreciate that that’s pretty phenomenal. I don’t know many teams that could.”

The Falcons took a 2-1 lead going into halftime when Ashley Stokes scored after a Green Hope corner kick was headed upward by Grace Hamashima, landing along the crossbar and rolling to on the other side of the box in front of Stokes.

Just five minutes into the second half, however, Apex’s Paige Reckert tied the score. Reckert headed the ball down and into the back of the net after becoming the third Cougars player in sequence with a header following a corner kick.

In overtime, the Falcons controlled possession and turned away Apex’s opportunities to hold on for the win.

Apex coach Kevin Todd, who was close friends with Daniels, said his team –visibly disappointed with not winning this homecoming – will bounce back.

“You’ve got to look at it as a game and realize that there are other goals to shoot for,” Todd said. “A lot can be said about lessons in losses. It’s just a sport, and it’s just a game, and we lost the game, but life goes on tomorrow.”