Fire U-17/18 allows two second-half goals in home defeat to Magic

By Curt Herron

Things were looking up for the Fire Academy's U-17/18 team after they held the Chicago Magic scoreless in the opening half of Saturday's home match.

It marked the fifth time in the last six halves that the Fire had kept an opponent off the scoreboard, a far cry from the squad's earlier struggles.

The other reason that it was a pretty big deal was that the Magic enjoyed a strong wind advantage at their backs during the opening half of play.

But the Fire's apparent edge in the Great Lakes Division was was diminished when the Magic connected into the wind shortly after the halftime break.

The much-improved Magic added an insurance score a little while later and went on to claim a 2-0 win at Toyota Park's practice field in Bridgeview.

After going 6-6-6 a year ago in the Frontier, the Magic are now 3-1-2 with 11 points and are challenging for the top spot in a tougher division.

Meanwhile, the Fire dropped to 1-3-2 with five points after suffering their second straight shutout loss and a third defeat on their home turf.

"The game plan when you're going into the wind in the first half, is that you want to get to halftime scoreless and then make the changes you want to make and then get after it, and we did for the first few minutes," Fire assistant coach Tony Kees said.

"We started to get some of the play that we were looking for and then they hit the big counter ball and stuck one on us and that changed everything again. But you have to give credit where credit is due and that's a pretty good Magic 18 team that we faced.

"Our 18s are still trying to find their way and have given up a lot of ground and it's going to be a tough fight back. But I think you have to look at other things, like the smaller victories. The play of some guys has picked up, but just not collectively."

As the second half got under way, the Fire got off the first try when Patrick Doody fired off a shot that was hauled in by keeper Jovani Castanon.

But shortly after that, the Magic grabbed the advantage when Rashad Jules connected on a counterattack in the 48th minute to make it a 1-0 match.

The Fire kept up the pressure right after the score, however, beginning with Brady Wahl being denied on a line drive by the Magic keeper.

Not long after that, Wahl got off a shot in the box that looked like it might have been a hand ball, but no call was made on that attempt.

Instead, the ball deflected back toward Doody and eventually found its way back again to Wahl, who sent a subsequent try wide of the net.

Fire keeper Sam Euler stopped an attempt by Noel Alvarez about 15 minutes into the new half but couldn't stop the next shot that came his way.

That happened during the 71st minute when David Masolak was able to connect to give the Magic a 2-0 lead which effectively wrapped up the win.

Right after that score, the Magic had another good chance, which proved to be its last, when Jayson LeSeth's free kick was hauled in by Euler.

As time wound down, the Fire applied pressure, beginning with a liner from Doody and a short try by Jacob Brindle that deflected off the post.

Shortly after that, Doody sent in a long free kick that was punched over the net and Manny Guzman's corner kick was headed wide by Brindle.

The Fire returns to their home field for division matches this weekend with the Columbus Crew on Saturday and with the Internationals on Sunday.