Ethan Horvath says he was confident that Luton would win their play-off final via penalties because they’ve put in three weeks of practice.
The Nottingham Forest loan stopper didn’t make a save in the shootout, but he didn’t need to as Luton scored all six of theirs and Fankaty Dabo missed his to send Town to the Premier League.
Horvath said: “We did our homework and we practiced the situation for two or three weeks, so I was confident in the boys to get it done and just being patient knowing that one of them was going to go our way.
“It’s kind of hard to put into words, but I’m so happy for Luton, the club, organisation, the town, everybody.”
Neither stopper got near the spot-kicks as it went to sudden death where Dan Potts scored Luton’s and Dabo didn’t.
Horvath said: “Yes, great penalties from both sides and the situation like this, after the fifth, you always know it’s going to be that one and credit to both teams it was great pens.’
Luton had opened the scoring with Jordan Clark notching in a dominant first half where they should’ve scored more.
And that came back to haunt the Hatters as Gus Hamer hammered an equaliser to take the contest to extra-time.
“(It) was a fantastic first half, we were really, really good, unlucky to not get more.
“Second half they came out good, and then you can kind of sense at the end of the second half we were coming and then had the momentum and that’s what we just said, extra time who wants it more? The tactics and all that goes out the window and it’s who wants it more?”
Horvath kept 21 clean sheets this term and the US international hailed his defensive team-mates saying: “The whole season, all credit to them, we’ve had different injuries, it’s all credit to everybody, the defence has been absolutely fantastic this year.”
And they had to recover quickly after captain Tom Lockyer collapsed early on and had to be taken to hospital.
“I kind of saw it out of the corner of my eye and I just thought he tripped, so first thing I did when I came in at half time was ask how is Tom? Is he OK? As I didn’t know it was that serious, but everything’s good and he’s OK.
“After something like that happens, we all know Tom, how important he’s been the last few games, so it’s like we want to get this done for him.
“I mean it’s football, it’s refocus and go again, that’s been our mentality, when a little setback happens, we just go again.”
