Rose City 4 - 2 Pennsylvania
Rose City wins! The Flyers claimed the BSL Cup this weekend through their trademark combination of good play and good luck. There was No Pity on the Stoners this time as the Boys in Red doubled up for a score of 4 - 2. Points came from all sorts of places including goals from Marco Di Vaio and Mauro Rosales, an assist off of the streaking Darlington Nagbe, and a clean sheet for Josh Saunders. Pennsylvania got a Save Point from Gspurning and an assist from Robbie Keane but players who are normally dangerous like Kei Kamara and Emilio Renteria were strangely quiet.
This is the second playoff game that Rose City has dominated against a team they failed to beat in the regular season. Both Pennsylvania and the vanquished Gateway United got maximum points off of the Flyers during regular season play. Rose City remains undefeated in Playoff play at 2-0-0.
It truly has been a dream season for the expansion club. The Flyers went all season without losing two in a row and finished 15-7-2 including Playoff play. The club got started slowly following a 3 - 1 loss and a lineup failure in week one but strong play and even stronger luck to finish the first half of the season with several 2 - 0 and 1 - 0 wins kept the Flyers in the midst of the Playoff hunt the whole time. It's hard to say which half of the season was better. The team ended the period before Majors Cup Qualifying in first place. Ultimately the team's APG would be much stronger in the second half of the season but stronger play by the rest of the league as well would deny Rose City a spot in the Majors Cup. They're the first team since the BSL's inaugural 2009 season to win the BSL Cup while not qualifying for the Majors Cup. Asked about it, the teams coach had this to say:
"We went out this weekend and did what we could. Are we disappointed that we didn't qualify for the Majors Cup? Sure. Everybody wants to play as much football as possible and now our season's over. We would have liked to win the Honors Trophy too. But to come into an established league like this and win a major piece of hardware in your first season? That really speaks to the quality of the organization and the types of players we have playing for this team. I'm proud to coach them. I'm proud to lead them. Thanks."
The team also wanted to make clear that they're very open to trade talks and negotiations on the off season. The coach and front office insisted that there was still room for improvement in the Rose City and that this year's champions would be back even stronger next season.
"We know what it takes to play in this league now. We're not just scrabbling in the dark like we were at the beginning of the year. You can be we'll be back and back with a vengeance," the coach offered when asked. "We made do with the tenth spot in the draft order last season. Something tells me we'll make it work again."
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| BSL Cup Champions - Rose City 2012 |
Congrats. Well done making a winner.
ReplyDeleteNice rookie season.
ReplyDeleteLike I said, it's a disappointment that I got better the second half and managed to miss the Majors Cup. But you can't have everything. I'm pretty pleased. Thanks to both of you!
ReplyDeleteLooking back, I'm still kicking myself for keeping Morales over Rosales. Congrats.
ReplyDeleteNow you get to something even harder next season... defend the title.
Well, I'm most certainly not making that mistake. He's as close to 100% for one of my DP slots as is possible right now.
DeleteThat said, I'm still not sure I handled the Maicon Santos debacle in what, Week Seven correctly. It's true that he cooled down a ton. But he scored four or five more at least. That could have put me further up the table given the right games. Who knows. Title defense will now begin!