CHICAGO FIRE ACADEMY

Fire squads settle for split in trip to Kansas City

U-18s beat Wizards 2-0 while U-16s suffer 1-0 loss

From staff reports

The Fire Academy U-18 and U-16 teams got the opportunity to experience something unusual over the weekend.

And that was getting the chance to take a road trip to the city that the first team was also competing in.

Prior to the Fire's 2-2 draw with the Kansas City Wizards Saturday night, the two Academy squads took the field.

The U-18s claimed an important Central Conference Frontier Division win by claiming a 2-0 win over the Wizards.

Meanwhile, the U-16s dropped a 1-0 decision to the Wizards in a clash of two of the favorites in their division.

The day started off well as the U-18 squad completed a two-game sweep over the Wizards with a win at Swope Park.

Chicago (6-2-3, 21) beat Kansas City (3-10-3, 12) 4-0 when the two met on April 25 at Saint Xavier University.

In Saturday's match, Wojciech Wojcik scored a goal in the tenth minute to put the Fire ahead for good.

Billy McGuinness added a score in the 80th minute, his first goal of the year, to wrap up the victory.

Charlie Lyon went the distance in goal and stopped everything that came his way to record the shutout.

Also earning starts for the U-18 team in Saturday's match were Harry Shipp, Brian Lunar and Scott Lakin.

The rest of the starters were Connor Holloway, Manny Guzman, Mike Enghofer, Tyler Engel and Patrick Doody.

Later, the U-16s fell 1-0 for the second time to the Wizards in a match played at Community America Ballpark.

Kansas City (6-2-8, 26) scored a goal in the 60th minute to beat Chicago (6-4-1, 19) on April 25 at SXU.

This time, the Wizards got a goal in the 79th minute from Jordan Rideout to account for the lone scoring.

Starters for the U-16s were Anthony Torres, Patryk Ruta, Victor Pineda and Luis Medina and keeper Sam Euler.

Also in the first 11 were Lalo Cuautle, Drew Conner, Elliot Borge, Peter Beasley, Luis Barajas and Keaton Albert.

The Fire Academy teams return to the Toyota Park practice field for a pair of divisional matches this weekend.

St. Louis Scott Gallagher Metro meets the Fire on Saturday and that club's Missouri team is in town on Sunday.

Charlie Lyon

Wojciech Wojcik

Billy McGuinness