WEBSTER CITY – Esler Meija crumpled to the turf and buried his head in the grass until Webster City teammate Connor O’Hearn raced over and physically lifted him to his feet as the sun began to set at Lynx Field last night.

WCHS head coach Craig Signorin felt the sting, too. After a sit-down chat with his players, he put his hands on his knees and stared at the ground for several moments.

The agony of defeat. It’s never fun, particularly in the final few minutes of a postseason match. Just like that, the season’s over.

Dallas Center-Grimes was responsible for the Lynx misery, as the Mustangs headed in the game-winning goal in the 78th minute to show 14th-ranked WCHS (15-5) the postseason exit, 2-1, in a Class 2A substate semifinal.

DC-G (10-7) advances to Saturday’s substate final against fifth-ranked Perry (15-3) on the Blue Jays home pitch. Perry snuck by Iowa Falls-Alden, 1-0, in the other semifinal last night.

“It’s shocking,” Signorin said less than five minutes after the match concluded. “I told the guys, I don’t think we can play much better than what we did, but they’re obviously a quality team. But that’s life. That’s soccer. Bad stuff happens and you just have to learn from it.”

Senior forward Ryan Exline provided the dagger with just 1:05 remaining in the contest. Off a perfect corner kick into the box, Exline out-jumped a bevy of Lynx defenders and headed the ball inside the right post to put DC-G in front for good.

It was the culmination of a match in which the Mustangs controlled for long stretches of time. They out shot WCHS 23-13, including 11-7 on goal. The visitors also owned a 9-4 advantage on corner kicks with both of its goals coming off the valuable scoring opportunities.

Signorin knew DC-G was a qualify club and he said neither he nor his players were fooled by its record entering the contest.

“Who they play and who they stuck with, they’re top teams in 3A and top teams in 2A,” Signorin said. “You look at that team, those are all soccer boys. We gave it our best shot for 78 minutes and it was good enough. Just not for the full 80.”

DC-G had taken 10 shots and owned a 1-0 lead before WCHS ever got a look at the goal. Sam Glasgow poured in the first goal off a rebound from right in front of the net in the ninth minute.

It remained 1-0 in the Mustangs’ favor until the 38th minute when Lynx senior forward Seth Crouthamel laced a low show from the right side of the box that just snuck inside the left post. Demar Lemus, another senior, provided the assist to knot the match at 1 heading into the intermission.

“That goal was huge and it gave us a little bit of a high spirit going into halftime and into the second half,” Signorin said. “Seth, I’m going to miss that guy … and I can’t say enough about Demar.”

Both teams had multiple chances during the second half to gain the upper-hand, but neither was able to pull the trigger until Exline’s header.

WCHS sophomore goalkeeper Ashton High gave another quality performance and finished with nine saves. He had six in the first half, including four on either dives or leaps to punch the ball out of bounds.