With his team staring at defeat, Chemjong turned the match around with an unbelievable header seconds before the end of stoppage time to level the scores at 1-1 in regulation time. Leaving his position, Chemjong moved forward into the opposition half and scored with a perfect header in a long throw from defender Sandip Rai.[break]
Nepali international Chemjong also denied two spotkicks taken by Sahara players in the tie-breaker. The match was decided in penalty shootout instead of additional time citing time constraints.
The tie-breaker also failed to decide the winner as the scores were tied at 3-3 after both the sides had taken five penalties. Three Star´s African recruits Adewumi Femi and Victor fired the first two spotkicks off the target. But Bishnu Sunuwar, Bijay Dhimal and Bijay Gurung converted the next three penalties.
Subash Gurung missed the first penalty for Sahara while the fifth spotkick by Ibrahim Olusola was denied by custodian Chemjong. Akeen O Babatunde, Hemanta Gurung and Hem Tamang scored for Sahara in the tie-breaker.
In the sudden death, Victor, skipper Chemjong and Anil Gurung converted their penalties for Three Star, while Deepak Gurung and Dil Bahadur were on target for Sahara. However, custodian Chemjong denied Manish Tamang´s third penalty for Sahara to send the defending champion through to the semifinals.
Earlier, Sahara had taken the lead against the run of play in the 33rd minute. Subash Gurung scored with a brilliant finish from outside the area in Hemant Gurung´s pass. Gurung chipped over advancing custodian Chemjong to stun Three Star.
Three Star, playing without its regular skipper Santosh Sahukhala and defender Biraj Maharjan, created frequent chances and made numerous attempts on goal but failed to find the equalizer until custodian Chemjong came to the rescue.
In the 28th minute, Bijay Dhimal was denied by Sahara custodian Ajeet Prajapati, who also prevented Victor´s header in the 39th. Prajapati again made a brilliant save to prevent Sandeep Rai´s header during the hour mark. Femi and Victor both missed chances in the 83rd minute as well.
Three Star coach Pradip Humagain said his side was made to work hard for victory as they had not trained after winning the A division league recently. "The players had not trained together after the league concluded and they lacked coordination today," said Humagain.
Sahara coach Kiran Shrestha blamed referee Laba Khatri for his side´s defeat. "We lost the match due to the referee´s biased decision." The referee conducted the match for nine minutes though only seven minutes of stoppage time were added. We lost the match we had already won. The referee behaved as if the league champion should not be defeated," said Shrestha, expressing satisfaction at his side´s performance.
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