USL Feature
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
By NICHOLAS MURRAY
On Sunday night as Kitsap Pumas coach Pete Fewing was watching the Major League Soccer game between the Portland Timbers and New York Red Bulls, his mind drifted back.
“It really brought back some fun memories,” Fewing said by phone on Monday.
Fewing’s side had been on the same field against the Portland Timbers U-23s a little more than two weeks earlier, earning a berth in the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup with a 3-2 victory thanks in part to a pair of goals by Robby Christner.
Now Fewing’s side is set to face fellow Premier Development League side the Real Colorado Foxes in tonight’s second round at Bremerton Memorial Stadium at 7 p.m. PDT. Still undefeated in all competitions this season, it’s been a remarkable season so far for the side accentuated by the first-of-its-kind play-in game against the Timbers.
“I happened to have the team over for dinner after our game against North Sound,” Fewing said. “I was on the phone with [Pumas executive director] Ben Pecora and I just said while I was in the middle of our team, I said ‘can we play the game Friday and the winner goes?’ We had already tied Portland, and granted we were going to their place and we’d lost to them three times last year, but all the guys wanted to do it. I was pleased Ben was able to make it happen, I was pleased the federation agreed to that, so to go down and beat them in that environment was a lot of fun.”
The Pumas had another memorable contest in the first round proper of the tournament, getting past the Chivas El Paso Patriots in a penalty shootout after heroics by 6-foot-6 back-up goalkeeper Zac Lubin. Trailing 2-0 in the shootout, Lubin made a save and forced another miss to send the shootout to sudden death, where he made another save in the ninth round to allow Bryan Burke to send the Pumas home victorious.
Lubin was making his first start for the club after an injury to regular starter Bryan Meredith, but came through with flying colors.
“He did well,” Fewing said. “He came up with some big saves, he held onto the ball in traffic, on the penalty kicks we said to him before, ‘save two’ and we went down 0-2 which was alarming to say the least in five rounds, but he came up and made a big save and cut the deficit and forced their fourth shooter to shoot wide, so he pulled us back into it and did very well.”
Now the Pumas have a chance to go further in the Open Cup than they have before in the club’s three-year history. After falling in the second round to the senior Portland Timbers side that now resides in MLS, the Pumas have got a game they believe is more manageable against the Foxes. That said, Real Colorado is also undefeated this season and Fewing believes they will be a challenge for his side’s defense with a number of capable goal-scorers leading the way. Among them are Lorne Donaldson, who leads the team with five goals, and Kyle Christensen and Drew Beckie, who each have four.
“I know they score a lot of goals,” Fewing said. “I’ve seen their results and I’ve seen their stats and I see they’ve got a number of guys, a couple of brothers, the Christensen brothers, who can score, it’s not one guy. El Paso had one guy who scored the goals, their No. 10, and then they had a bunch of other guys with one, but this team has a bunch of guys who can score goals. Many of the guys come from Denver University and that’s a very good program, so I expect them to be attacking the entire time and we want to counter that.”
But Fewing adds that facing a fellow PDL side instead of a professional opponent at this stage will give both teams aspirations of moving on to face defending Open Cup champions the Seattle Sounders next week.
“I think both teams come in with a very similar experience playing in two different PDL leagues, but I agree that it’s different than playing against the Portland team last year,” Fewing said. “They were just bigger, faster and stronger, but I think we line up much closer to each other this time around and there is that motivation to go further than we’ve gone before and I think the guys are comfortable and excited about the opportunity. If we are to advance, then things psychologically take a bit of a different twist, but we’ll manage that as it comes.”