VERONA -- Tory Nestler was taking her parents through her version of a crazy 70 seconds of overtime soccer Monday evening when the Verona junior goalkeeper let it slip that she "got lucky" in stopping a point-blank shot by McFarland's Sara Stern at the height of it all.

"You're not going to get me to say that again, " Nestler joked as a couple of reporters approached after she and the Wildcats rallied for a 2-1 overtime victory at Badger Ridge Middle School that left them in firm control of the Southern Badger Conference race.

Alex Melin gave Verona the victory by pounding a penalty kick past Adrienne Rust, who had been brilliant in goal for the Spartans, at the 88-minute, 11-second mark of a game that saved its best twists and turns for the final 1:10. It began when Nestler stoned Stern's shot at 86:55 and ended just as quickly after McFarland's Jennifer Olson took Melin down in the box, sensing there was enough daylight between the Wildcats' sophomore and Rust to end it then and there.

"Had she gone through, there was another defender there," Spartans coach Domenick Genova said. "Would she have scored? Who knows."

It might have been as automatic as Melin's successful penalty kick that sent Verona (8-2-1 overall, 4-0 Southern Badger) home needing only a win today at Monona Grove or next Tuesday at Monroe for its sixth conference title in the last nine years.

Melin showed her range at the 67-minute mark when she blistered a 35-yard shot into the upper right corner of the net to tie the game 1-1. She almost put an end to things 30 seconds into overtime, only to watch her attempt rocket off the right post.

"She can score a lot of ways," Wildcats coach Matt Heilman said of Melin, who has a team-high seven goals for the state's seventh-ranked Division 1 team. "She scores outside. She scores getting behind the defense. She scores finishing crosses. She's got a lot of ways of scoring, but we're trying to get her to attack with more speed."

That's the way McFarland (5-2-2, 4-1-1) -- the state 's fourth-ranked Division 2 team -- took a 1-0 lead 17:17 into the game when Stern slipped behind the Wildcats defense and beat Nestler to the keeper's right. And Stern almost did it again in the overtime only to have Nestler -- lucky or not -- smother the attempt.

"We knew we couldn't let (No.) 2 get behind us," Heilman said. "Stern's a great player. She's fast. The way she scores goals is (by) getting behind defenses and we let her do it twice.

"Fortunately, she only scored the one. We dodged a bullet with the other."