A 94th-minute winner from Ludovic Boi sent the majority of the crowd at Litis Stadium wild as Floreat Athena fought off Perth by the odd goal in Round 8 of PlayStation 4 NPL Western Australia.
Having led 3-1 at half-time, Athena found themselves level at 3-3 late on as the Azzurri grabbed two goals in sixty seconds to seemingly snatch an unlikely point.
But a goalkeeping howler from the otherwise excellent Alex Dunn gifted the home side a winner with almost the last kick of a thrilling contest under lights as Athena kept pace with PS4 National Premier Leagues WA leaders Bayswater City.
Despite almost throwing away two vital points, Athena coach Glen Grostate was delighted with the fight and heart his side showed, especially the players who came in from the reserves.
"We were five players down today but these boys work so hard for each other,” he said. “We looked at this game as a semi-final. We wanted to go into next week at Bayswater unbeaten.
"We look to get goals early and have teams chase us and then try and get them on the break. We're eight games unbeaten now and we haven't really had a full squad yet.”
In other results, Stirling Lions honoured the recent passing of former coach Ernie Hannigan with a commanding 4-2 victory over ECU Joondalup at Macedonia Park.
Cockburn City scored a second successive win of the season with a 1-0 success against Subiaco at Rosalie Park.
Two early goals were enough for Balcatta to earn a 2-1 win over Sorrento despite a valiant second-half effort from the home side at Percy Doyle Reserve.
Inglewood United moved to eighth on the PS4 National Premier Leagues WA table after a hard fought 2-1 win against Armadale at Alfred Skeet Reserve.
And, top of the table Bayswater City came away with the three points at Inglewood Stadium but not without a strong challenge from a youthful Perth Glory team.