After forcing overtime a week ago to advance, the Tucker Tigers came up short in rallying from a 3-1 deficit as No. 4 ranked Cass held on for a 3-2 Class 5A boys’ state soccer playoff victory at Adams Stadium on Tuesday night.

Tucker took an early 1-0 lead on a penalty kick by Mikael Dawit with 21:14 to go in the first half.

Cass answered with two goals in the final 15:02 of the opening half to take the lead for good at 2-1. The first goal came off a corner kick as Christian Villela headed the ball into the net to tie the game at 1-1.

Then with 10:49 to go in the half Melvin Velasquez got past a defender and beat Tucker keeper Hasan Al Nasari for the 2-1 lead.

Al Naseri picked up a pair of saves in the final 9:58 of the first half including with just 1:58 remaining to keep the Tigers within striking distance.

The two teams were battling back and forth in the second half when Velasquez received a red card for arguing with a referee and put his team down a man.

Tucker began pressing only to not fall back in time as Camden Hillhouse ran down a deep ball, collided with Al Naseri and managed to get the ball in the goal for what would be the deciding goal to put Cass up 3-1 with a shorthanded goal.

The Tigers continued to force the ball up the field and with 9:09 to lay Tucker’s Laurent Risase split defenders with nice ball move and beat a diving Saul Villela out in front of the goal to score.

Tucker still trailed by a goal and with several opportunities were turned away twice in the final 5:26 by Villela with key saves to preserve the win for Cass (15-3-1).

Tucker finishes the season 9-10-2 with the Region 4-5A title as the final DeKalb soccer team in the state playoffs.