Sunday, July 1, 2012
HIGHLANDS RANCH, Colo. – The Real Colorado Foxes took down the Kansas City Brass with a pair of 2-1 victories during their final homestand of the 2012 PDL regular season. The victories kept the Foxes on course for the PDL playoffs, as they currently sit second in the Heartland Division, holding a five-point advantage over the third-placed Des Moines Menace.
Friday saw the injury-riddled Foxes fall behind 1-0 in the first half as Jordan Green gave the Brass a halftime lead, and to add that midfielder Dan Dwyer, who was kicked hard in the ankle around the 21st minute, had to exit the match early. The second half was a different story as the Foxes rallied to score twice, with midfielder Mike Lind tying the game before Levi Rossi danced around three defenders in order to place home the game-winner in his last match with the club before returning to the University of New Mexico with teammate Kyle Venter.
Saturday mirrored Friday's match with the home side falling behind in the first half before Lind, in his final match with club after signing a professional contract with a team in Latvia, again found a way to equalize. The Foxes had a few near misses off of a pair of corners before a blocked shot by midfielder Clayton Zelin off a cross from defender Julian Donaldson found its way to forward Cole Chapleski for the game winner.
“Julian put in a perfect service near post to me," Zelin said. "I headed it on goal, the keeper made a big save and Cole slammed the follow up home upper 90. We scored four goals on the weekend [in the] upper 90. We put in a lot of effort to get both results. Both days after we went down 1-0 we had a lot of chances to score that came through hard work.”
The Thunder Bay Chill (11-1-0, 33pts) secured their spot in the playoffs as the division winner this weekend with a pair of wins against the St. Louis Lions (3-8-2, 11pts).
As for the final playoff berth from the Heartland Division, Real Colorado can claim it without any math if they match their pair of victories against the Brass (3-6-1, 10pts) in Kansas City next weekend. Otherwise, the Foxes can clinch if the Des Moines Menace (6-5-2, 20pts) fails to come away with six more points in their final three matches, than Real Colorado (7-3-4, 25pts) in their final two. And because Real Colorado holds the head-to-head tie breaker, if it comes down to that, it would take either pair of Menace wins coupled with a pair of Foxes losses or the Menace making a 3-0 run and the Foxes splitting their series on the road with KC for the Foxes to miss out.