Fire U-15/16 can't find net again, falls to Crew following questionable PK

By Curt Herron

No one can really dispute that the defensive performance thus far for the Fire Academy's U-15/16 team has been rather exceptional.

Midway through Great Lakes Division play, the Fire had six shutouts, allowed one goal in the run of play and no scores in the second half.

But all of those impressive numbers provide little consolation for Chicago after it split a pair of home matches during this past weekend.

After scoring a late goal to pull out a 1-0 victory over the Internationals on Saturday, the Fire lost by the same score the following day.

In a matchup of MLS Academy teams, the Columbus Crew converted a questionable penalty kick to earn a 1-0 win at Toyota Park's practice field.

The victory keeps the Crew (6-1-2, 20 points) on top of the division while the Fire dropped to 3-2-3 with 12 points through eight matches.

In those eight outings, Chicago has been shut out five times, with three of those being scoreless draws and the other pair 1-0 setbacks.

After only collecting five goals during through the midway point of division play, the Fire clearly need to pick things up offensively.

A controversial foul was called in the box in the 30th minute and Alexander Ranalli put in the penalty kick for the match's lone goal.

It was a big victory for the Crew, who had dropped a match by a similar score a day earlier when they met up with the Chicago Magic.

"When you're struggling to score, a mistake or a bad call can make a difference in a game, like it did today," Fire assistant coach Tony Kees said. "It really puts a lot of pressure on the back line.

"Our goalkeepers and our defending in general has been pretty good, but on the other end, you can't make it stand up if you aren't scoring. So we've got to start to find solutions to scoring goals.

"When you go back and look at all of the chances, we certainly had the better looks, but we just couldn't finish. So it makes a mistake or a bad call like the PK stand up and it only magnifies it."

In the opening half, Joel Salmeron was denied on a liner and Zachary Mason sent a long free kick that keeper Christian Lomeli punched away.

At about the midpoint of the first half, Jesus Medina directed a corner kick to Salmeron, who saw his attempt deflect off of the crossbar.

That set the table for the foul in the box which resulted in Ranalli's PK which gave the visitors the only score that they would need.

Shortly before the halftime break, Crew keeper Mike Thomas stopped attempts from both Medina and Manny Chavez to assure a 1-0 advantage.

The squads exchanged chances early in the final half with Elliot Borge being denied before Lomeli stopped a shot from David Witkoff.

A short time later, Salmeron was wide on one attempt and then had a second shot try stopped when the Crew keeper came out of the net.

Not long after that, Lomelli sent a free kick from near the midfield that Borge headed toward the net but it was pulled in by Thomas.

Just before the final whistle blew, Cody Witkowski looked like he was fouled in or near the box but the official let the play continue.