USL Feature
Friday, June 24, 2011
By NICHOLAS MURRAY
One of the biggest factors in a team’s success can be how they play late in games.
For the Wilmington Hammerheads, that has been a strong suit so far this season as they side has managed to turn defeats into ties and ties into victories on its way to a 5-3-3 record entering tonight’s USL PRO Game of the Week at Legion Stadium against the Charleston Battery on Fox Soccer Channel at 8 p.m.
A third of the Hammerheads’ 18 goals in USL PRO have come in the final 15 minutes of games. From a pair of goals that earned a 3-1 victory against Pittsburgh to last week’s goal with four minutes to go against Orlando City, Wilmington’s ability to strike late has led to their strong return to the league this season.
“We’ve got a good spirit, and that was something we saw the first day of preseason,” Coach David Irving said by phone this week. “They have a resilience and they have a spirit and they believe in each other and hopefully that will take us where we need to go.”
The Hammerheads certainly appear to be on the right path, and part of that could be attributed to the youth of Irving’s squad. With Andriy Budnyy, who scored the equalizer against the Lions last Saturday, as the oldest member of the team at 28 years old, and a number of key players being only 23 or 24, the energy and enthusiasm that is often needed to pull a team out of a hole is abundant on the Hammerheads’ roster.
That spirit was epitomized on Tuesday night in the side’s Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup match against the Charlotte Eagles. Trailing 2-0 with 35 minutes to go, the Hammerheads were able to rally behind a superb performance off the bench by Chris Banks. The 23-year-old rookie, who previously played for the University of New Hampshire before scoring nine goals in 11 games for MPS Portland Phoenix a year ago in the Premier Development League, assisted on the Hammerheads’ first goal before scoring the equalizer himself with nine minutes to go.
Banks almost added a second before the final whistle, hitting the crossbar with a header, but fellow rookie Luke Mulholland sent the side through with a fine curled finish in the first period of overtime.
Mulholland’s goal was his sixth in all competitions this season, and along with Banks, Paul Nicholson and Ivan Becerra, he has been one of the key figures in the Hammerheads’ season. A former PDL player for Reading United, the 22-year-old from England played well at the USL Men’s Player Combine in January, which led to interest from some teams. When those trials didn’t work out, though, Irving swooped to sign the youngster.
“Sometimes kids just need an opportunity,” Irving said. “You see things, Chris Banks has good pace, he’s a handful, he’s 6-foot-2, puts himself about a bit and when he played in the PDL he scored goals. Luke was the same, I know about Luke, I was surprised that we really got Luke. [We] saw him at the USL Showcase and I tried to get him, but Rochester liked him, and he went to camp at Rochester and he went to camp with Charleston and they let him go.”
Mulholland was certainly a key factor in the Hammerheads’ first victory against the Battery this season, scoring twice in a 3-0 victory on May 14. Irving, though, believed that score line wasn’t indicative of the way the game was played and is expecting a tough challenge in tonight’s game.
But with national television coming to Wilmington for the first time since the Hammerheads won the USL-2 Championship game in 2003, the city is certainly full of anticipation, with a planned ‘Blue Out’ and potentially the highest attendance of the season.
“In light of everything that’s happened over the last two years, the team going away and coming back, our fan support has been unbelievable this year,” Irving said. “I think it will be great for Wilmington as a city and as a community to show what a great sports town it is and that we have sports fans here and they really support their home town team.”