For most of Tuesday’s Section 2A girls soccer semifinal, Willmar’s Karis Rogers caused Mankato West fits from her left forward spot with a dazzling display of speed and dribbling.

Rogers tried to set up her teammates with passes in front for virtually all of regulation play but, once the game went to overtime, she decided to try to score herself. With 13:34 left in the extra session, Rogers charged the net, took a shot that was stopped by West goalie Emily Wick, picked up the rebound and shot it over the prone keeper.

The result was a 1-0 victory for the Cardinals and the end of the season for Mankato West.

“I just decided I was going to take the shot myself,” the senior Rogers said afterward. “I was able to get the rebound and shoot it over their goalie who was lying down.

“It was definitely my biggest goal of the season ... actually, it was the biggest goal of my career. This is the farthest we’ve ever gone in the playoffs.”

A subdued West coach Crissy Makela was not surprised that Rogers was responsible for the game winner.

“We were well aware of her before the match,” Makela said. “She and (Chloe Donoho) combined for 20 of their goals this year so we knew we had to watch out for them.

“For the most part we stopped them during regulation. They just got that fortunate rebound and that was the difference.”

After a scoreless first half, Makela talked to her Scarlets at intermission about tweaking their formation to try to generate more offense. The idea was rejected and they stayed in their 3-3-4 alignment.

“They felt more comfortable playing the way they were,” Makela said. “We brought Alyssa Black out to midfield at the start of the game because we like the way she plays through the ball. Kailey Scheller played in Black’s usual defensive spot and she’s had a lot of experience there in summer soccer.”

Rogers said she was surprised her Cardinals were able to pull out Tuesday’s win.

“(West is) a good team but I thought we played with them pretty well,” she said. “We put some quality shots on net and we played solid defense against them. Now we have to go Albert Lea to see if we can win the section.”

Willmar outshot the Scarlets 9-6. Chelsey Wierschem picked up the shutout.

Willmar improves to 10-8-2 while West ends the year 12-5-1.