Scoreless draw with division winner Crew gets Fire U-15/16 into playoffs

By Curt Herron

After claiming a win over the Internationals on Saturday, the Fire Academy U-15/16 team may have presumed that it had qualified for the playoffs.

But a closer look at the US Soccer Development Academy wildcard scenario revealed that an extra point on Sunday would seal the deal for the Fire.

That would be easier said than done, considering that the Fire was meeting the Columbus Crew, who won the Great Lakes Division title on Saturday.

But after withstanding a few serious Crew threats while nearly connecting on several of their own, the Fire was able to walk away with one point.

Chicago's scoreless draw at the Crew training facility in Obetz, Ohio proved to be good enough to assure it of one of the dozen wildcard entries.

The Fire finished division play in third place with an 8-4-4 mark and 28 points while the Crew won the division by going 10-3-3 with 33 points.

More importantly for the Fire, they went 12-5-6 with 42 points during all of their matches, which was good for a 1.83 points per match average.

That ranks them ninth out of 12 wildcards, but that could change a bit since there are some matches this week which could affect the playoffs.

Beside the Crew, the Fire will be joined in next weekend's USSDA playoffs in Frisco, Texas by two other division teams, Sockers FC and Vardar.

The U-15/16 match was the midway mark of the five contests between the two sides during the day, with the first four being held at the Obetz training facility.

When the action was done there, the Fire youth headed over to Crew Stadium, where the first team scored a late goal to capture a 1-0 victory.

A day after just missing out on their 11th Great Lakes shutout, Chicago got to that mark by posting their fourth scoreless draw in the division.

Christian Lomeli faced few serious threats behind defenders Charlie Oliver, Cody Witkowski, Benjamin Kucera, Louis Bennett and Mike Winhoffer.

"They're a very good that's at the top of our division, but we knew what we had to do," Lomeli said. "We knew that we needed to get at least four points this weekend, and we were able to do that.

"This is one of the toughest divisions in the country and anyone can beat anyone. So we came out with the mentality to win, and we won one and tied one, which was good since it gets us to Dallas.

"Things are picking up like we want them to. We're starting to score more, defending better and communicating more. I know we've had some off days, but I believe that we'll do well in the playoffs."

The Crew's best chance also was one of the limited number of good opportunities that either squad had during the opening 40 minutes of play.

In the 32nd minute, Nathan Kohl directed a cross to Jared Robinson, who sent a header toward the goal that wound up bouncing off the crossbar.

Right after the break, the Fire threatened when Joel Salmeron sent in a long free kick which forced keeper Mike Thomas to make a diving stop.

After Tommy Harr countered with a liner to the Fire keeper, Salmeron sent an attempt to Thomas which followed up on his free kick into a wall.

The Fire threatened with a long free kick from Winhoffer and a liner from Manny Chavez before Francisco Sajuan saw his effort deflected away.

Lomeli came up with a stop in front of the net after Harr got past defenders a bit later for what proved to be the Crew's final good chance.

Shortly before the last whistle blew, Salmeron had a try deflected and Manny Rios put in a rebound, but it was disallowed by an offside call.

"Our goal from the beginning of the season was to get back to the playoffs," Rios said. "We have high expectations since we won a national championship last year so the goal is to get back there.

"Our conference is one of the hardest in the nation and every game we played was tough, but we just had to keep fighting and playing through being tired in order for us to hope for the best.

"We knew coming in today that we had to get a win or a tie and we went out there and did our job and came out of a tough match with a draw. We're in a pretty good rhythm heading into the playoffs."