The players who helped the Utica Chieftains beat the Rochester Falcons 2-1 on Wednesday night in a district tournament game were not ones whose names have been in lights.

Tied 1-1 in the second half thanks to first half goals by Utica’s Jack Ladue and Rochester’s Isaac Wood, the Chieftains lined up for a corner kick with a new face lining up for the shot: yearlong JV player Lucas Hantia.

“We’ve struggled with consistency on corner kicks all year,” said Utica head coach Dave Moran. “Lucas H. is a JV player that I’ve been watching all year who has consistently scored on restarts. On JV, his corner kicks were always good. So at halftime, I made the decision: Lucas H., if you’re in the game, you’re on the corner kicks.”

Their corner attempt 14 minutes into the first half was denied by Rochester. But four minutes later, Hantia stepped into another corner kick, and this time, Patryk Skomski was there — the defender redirected the kick with a header past Rochester keeper Diego Resendiz for his first-ever varsity goal.

Skomski said it was an easier try than Hantia’s first corner attempt.

“Most people were spread out, so not everyone was crowded,” Skokmski said. “There’s more space.”

The Chieftains nearly turned one goal into two, but a kick save by Resendiz kept the margin at one.

It wasn’t a coincidence that Utica had finally started earning themselves more clean looks.

“Our first goal came off of getting a ball wide and working the outside backs and then, as soon as we scored, we switched off of it and started going to more of an attack up the middle again,” Moran said. “I’ve been telling the guys all season, ‘Go with what’s working for you.’ Like, if you score off of something, keep going at it until the other team figures out how to shut it down.”

The second corner kick was a direct result of that strategy — Nate Rineer, who assisted on the Chieftains’ first goal, got Utica their goal-scoring corner try once he got back to attacking the flanks as opposed to jamming the ball through the middle.

Rochester’s best chance to tie the game also came on a corner kick with just under two minutes to go, but Utica’s defense and keeper Luca Vano snuffed out the attempt and managed to get a clear.

While the result was a relief, Moran and Utica know that they were one bad bounce away from surrendering the lead.

“That’s been our season, is to get ahead and then we end up giving up an — I think — easy corner, and then the penalty that we gave right outside, that’s another one,” Moran said. “Those are the ones where we can put ourselves in a very bad position by just giving up an easy corner or giving up an easy restart up top. But the guys persevere. They didn’t allow it in, and here we are.”

The missed opportunity spelled doom for Rochester, whose season ends 8-8-1 record.

“This is one of the closest teams we’ve had from our seniors down to our freshmen and everyone in-between — you can’t replicate that. And in club soccer, you’re playing with the friends that you grew up with from five years old. This year especially, it was great. We’ve had kids that played a lot of years together, so this was a culmination of it.”

“Unfortunately it didn’t end the way that we would have hoped in the end. Only one team can win their last game. So we take it and use it as fuel and motivation going forward.”

The Falcons graduate 10 seniors, but they’re already looking ahead to the offseason and how they’re going to use it to be ready for next August.

“I told the boys — there’s not one team that’s going to work harder than us in the offseason, and not a coaching staff that’ll work harder in the offseason than us. And that’s the mentality that we’re going to have.”

Utica’s season will continue at least until Tuesday, Oct. 15 when they’ll tango with city rival Eisenhower Eagles for a third time this season. Eisenhower knocked off Ford II 2-1 in a shootout on Wednesday.

Eisenhower has won both of the teams’ meetings this season — one was close, 3-2, on Sept. 4, and the other wasn’t, 4-0, on Sept. 23.

The Chieftains have just one message.

“You know what they say,” Skomski said.

“Third time’s the charm.”