Fire U-15/16 beats South Carolina but sees nationals hopes dashed as PA Classics stun North Meck

By Curt Herron

As a trip to the USSDA national finals came within their grasps, it suddenly slipped away from the Fire Academy's U-15/16 team.

And it wasn't the result of anything that the Fire did, but rather involved the drama that was unfolding on an adjacent field.

The Fire experienced the range of emotions on Tuesday at Pizza Hut Park in Frisco, Texas after seeing their hopes get dashed.

With Chicago taking care of business against South Carolina United FC, it needed two types of results in the other pool match.

One of those was for North Meck SC to defeat PA Classics in a close match and the other was to have the pair play to a draw.

That seemed to be happening after North Meck took a 1-0 lead midway through the first half and kept it until the late going.

But PA Classics went on the attack and scored a pair of goals in the final three minutes to rally for a stunning 2-1 victory.

The Fire defeated South Carolina 4-0 and owned the edge in goal differential over North Meck if it had hung on for the win.

Thanks to its 1-0 win over the Fire on Saturday, PA Classics claimed the pool with seven points while Chicago had six points.

PA Classics earned its first trip to nationals while the Fire fell short of having the chance to defend their national title.

Five players on this year's squad, Elliot Borge, Drew Conner, Jesus Medina, Manny Rios and Joel Salmeron, were on that team.

"Give PA classics credit since they're a quality team that fought the whole tournament," Borge said. "We got away with a late goal on Sunday and PA Classics got that today.

"We didn't get things done on our first day here and that kind of took it out of our hands. But we had a good group this year and I enjoyed playing with them this season.

"No matter how good of a team you are, you need to get a few things to go your way during the playoffs. Last year we definitely had that happen but not so much this year.

"I wish all of the guys on our team could see what it's like to be in the national finals. We're all fired up about coming back and being a part of the Academy next year."

The Fire (14-6-6) set the tone early against South Carolina (13-11-4) when Francisco Sajuan connected in the seventh minute.

With the PA Classics-North Meck match starting about 10 minutes before theirs, the Fire had some idea of what was unfolding.

Shortly after Chicago scored its first goal, North Meck went up 1-0 in its match and things were starting to look positive.

But the South Carolinians were determined to put up a fight, as they had done when playing to a 2-2 draw with PA Classics.

Just after the midway mark of the first half, Christian Lomeli had to come out of the net to stop a try by William Dunbaker.

And not long after that, Lomeli stopped a liner by Dakotah Millard before Medina was just wide on an attempt for the Fire.

South Carolina appeared to catch a big break during the 26th minute when Chicago was called for a hand ball inside the box.

But on the subsequent penalty kick, the Fire keeper correctly anticipated the play and stopped the try by Nestor Jaramillo.

After that drama, Sajuan found the net again in the 30th minute to give his squad a little breathing room with a 2-0 lead.

The Fire had some more chances to score before the break but Sajuan hit the post and Ruben Chavez and Salmeron were denied.

Shortly after the second half got underway, Chicago's advantage grew to 3-0 when Manny Chavez connected in the 44th minute.

About 10 minutes after that, Lomeli got injured while diving to deflect a shot, which delayed things while he recuperated.

Now even further behind the match on the field just to their north, the Fire began to hear the cheer of the Pennsylvanians.

The first came when Connor Maloney scored in the 78th minute and the next on Christian Kaschak's goal in the 80th minute.

While some of the Fire players sensed what was going on, others were still in the dark as they wrapped up their own match.

Chicago closed out play on the hot and sunny afternoon in the Metroplex by getting a goal from Salmeron in the 80th minute.

"We did everything on our part today, but we saw that we can't rely on other teams to do our work, "Salmeron said. "So hopefully we'll learn from this experience,

"On our first day here we found out that it's not all about fancy soccer since PA Classics hustled more than we did and they were able to get the win against us.

"Some of us still didn't realize that PA Classics had won so we kept battling. We'll have good U-16 and U-18 teams next year, so we're looking forward to that."

Kyle Dal Santo stepped in for Lomeli during the last 10 minutes to combine with him for the shutout in goal for the Fire.

It marked the squad's second straight shutout in playoff action and also their 13th clean sheet in their last 19 matches.

Defenders Louis Bennett, Charlie Oliver, Benjamin Kucera and Cody Witkowski and others gave up nine goals over that span.

With the Fire's defeat on Tuesday, the Great Lakes Division was shut out in its effort to advance any of its teams to nationals.

A total of nine squads from the U-15/16 and U-17/18 levels advanced from one of the toughest conferences in USSDA play but none will be making the trip to Milwaukee.