Kitsap Pumas News release -- www.kitsapsoccerclub.com
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
EL PASO, Texas - A dream 2011 soccer season almost turned nightmarish for the Kitsap Pumas on Tuesday evening. But despite failing to capitalize on several key scoring opportunities early and finding themselves down two shootout goals after a scoreless regulation and overtime session - 120 minutes of continuous play - the Pumas chose not to go gently into that good night. By the decisive fifth shooter, the final tiebreaking segment was knotted at 3-3, signaling sudden death. 
After Chivas El Paso’s Christian Landa missed the Kitsap net entirely, Puma rookie forward Bryan Burke - his club’s ninth shooter - closed the show with a bullet past a diving Diego Briseno and into the top-left corner of the net. That game-winner kept Kitsap unbeaten on the season in all competitions - and made a winner out of first-time starting goalie Zac Lubin as the Pumas advanced out of the first round of the 2011 Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup Tournament. It is the second consecutive year the club has accomplished this feat.
With the 0-0 (6-5) victory, Kitsap (7-0-1 record in league play; 1-0-0 in Cup play) will host Real Colorado (5-0 winners over the DV8 Defenders) Tuesday evening at 7 p.m. at home in second round action. El Paso (5-4) will return to its United Soccer League Player Development League Mid South Division play.
"I just picked a spot to go to and if he saves it, he saves it," said Burke, who still officially has no goals on the season despite netting one of Kitsap’s biggest goals of this season. "Everyone was going to the right [side] and the goalie was making some saves."
Lubin made a couple of those big saves himself, stretching out his 6-foot-6 frame as far as he could to his own left, as the Puma’s crawled back from an early deficit.
"I knew that if I made some saves, [my teammates] would put some balls past ‘em and come back."
Lubin was called into action after starting goalie Bryan Meredith (4 shutouts) went down with an ankle strain during last week’s league action.
"When I saw Bryan in a boot Saturday, I kind of had an idea [the start in El Paso woud be his]," the 21-year-old former St. Martin’s keeper said. "And he came up to me and said, ‘You’re our guy and I believe in you.’ "
Kitsap head coach Peter Fewing said Meredith could be out for a couple of weeks, which makes makes him a likely no-go for Friday’s home match with Abbotsford and at least questionable for Round 2 Tuesday versus Colorado.
"I was proud of the guys. We flew out of Seattle this morning at six a.m.," said Pumas head coach Pete Fewing, who saw his team continue a storybook season which includes his Pumas avenging their lone hiccup—a 0-0 tie versus reigning PDL champ Portland — with a momentous 3-2 victory just under two weeks ago. "The wake-up call was at 4 a.m. That’s pretty early."
Lubin might have received his wake-up call a little later, laying out to his left for a fingertip save of El Paso’s Rodrigo Morin late in the second overtime to officially let his team know he was putting up a wall in front of the posts.
"I’m young, but I’ve been around these guys who have a lot of experience," said the first-year PDL player Lubin. "I think it’s helped that I’ve been able to watch and see how fast this game moves."
The Pumas pounced on El Paso from the night’s opening kickoff, amassing nine corner kicks in the game’s first six minutes to dominate both time of possession and field position, yet not the scoreboard, in a 0-0 first half. Kitsap scoring leader Matt Friessen (five goals) came the closest to getting his club on the books, ringing a penalty kick off the right post in the 23rd minute before getting stoned by a diving Chivas El Paso goalie Diego Briseno on a 20-yard rip some 20 minutes later.
"The way we started," Fewing said. "We just needed to get one. We had our chances."
Burke got hauled down from behind by a red-carded and ejected Hugo Samano Contreras on the final play in the second overtime. David Gray’s subsequent free kick from just a foot outside the goalie’s box sailed well high as the whistle sounded to send the scoreless contest to shootout.
Once there, Nik Besagno, Elliott Fauske, Mark Lee, Dave Gray, and Steve Mohn all netted shootout goals to set the stage for Burke.
"I’m glad it was Bryan Burke taking that," Fewing said. "He’s a great finisher."
The 40-team U.S. Open Cup field, with nine representatives from the PDL, 11 from the third-division USL PRO, eight from the United States Adult Soccer Association and four other clubs from the National Premier Soccer League, was whittled by 16 squads after Tuesday’s first-round match-ups. Eight second-round games are scheduled for Tuesday, June 21 with those winners to pair off versus eight Major League Soccer clubs June 28 in Round of 16 action.
Those MLS teams, which receive byes through the first two rounds, include two-time defending Open Cup champion Seattle, runner-up Columbus, the 2010 league champ Los Angeles Galaxy, second-place Real Salt Lake, FC Dallas and New York along with qualifiers Chicago and Sporting Kansas City.
Quarterfinals are set for July 12 with the semis seven weeks later on Aug. 30.
The title match will be played Oct. 4.
Tickets for Friday's home match are on sale now. Tickets for Tuesday's Cup match will go on sale at 2 p.m. tomorrow.
All tickets are available online at www.brownpapertickets.com.