DULLES HOLDS OFF TIDEWATER TO EARN IPL WINTER 2010-2011 CHAMPIONSHIP

By Tom Leiss

FREDERICKSBURG—Sunday night’s Indoor Premier League championship at Fredericksburg Field House started out fast and furious and ended with a flurry that nearly sent the game to overtime.

The teams scored three times in the first 90 seconds and Dulles A.C. held a 6-3 advantage at the end of the first period, then held off a determined comeback effort from the Tidewater Sharks in the last four minutes of the game to get a 12-11 victory.

Dulles coach Scott Batchelder said his team was confident coming into the game and had a plan.

“I thought that we were going to beat them,” Batchelder said. “We knew they played their big guy up top, so I just put my big guy on him. Then all we had to do was just mark once we got ahead and make them come to us.”

That plan worked pretty well until late in the final period.

Dulles started the scoring in that period with a power play goal to take a 9-6 advantage. But Tidewater scored the next two, including a beautiful shot into the upper left corner of the goal from midfield by Shane Monroe, to bring the Sharks within 9-8 with 8:30 left to play.

After a time out, Dulles got goals from Marcos Chantel, Mike Foss and Gui Foneia—the game’s leading scorer with four goals—to provide themselves with a four-goal cushion (12-8) with 4:09 left to play.

Tidewater coach Kevin Darcy said some of his players’ youthfulness might have helped contributed to Dulles’ three-goal outburst as they tried to push for the tying goal too much when they didn’t need to.

“A couple of our young guys at the 10 minute mark thought we had to chase at that point, but you’ve got all day in this game,” Darcy said. “The last five minutes the clock is stopping, so if you kind of stay with it and keep your focus you can chip away at it and we almost did it.”

And chip away at it they did, as Dulles needed every bit of its four-goal advantage.

Playing with a sixth attacker, Tidewater got goals from Jalon Brown with 3:22 to play and Nathan Belcher—the Sharks “big guy”—at the 2:26 mark and with 44 seconds left to cut the Sharks’ deficit to one at 12-11.

Tidewater kept the pressure on as the clock wound down, but Dulles was able to hold on to earn themselves a spot in the U.S. Indoor Soccer Association National Championships in Chicago on April 2-3.

Coming into the game, both teams knew the other could score, but both teams had also been putting a high emphasis of defense during the season, particularly once the playoffs began. Dulles had the second-best defense in the regular season and the Sharks had allowed just six goals in its two playoff games.

Darcy was a bit disappointed, but not shocked at the offensive showing in the game.

“We put a real priority on defending in the second half of the season and especially in the playoffs,” Darcy said. “It was a credit to how [Dulles] was running their offense in the final third.

“They were running us in and out of spaces and finding open guys and everything they hit seemed to find its way in.”

After a frenetic first period, both teams picked up the defensive efforts in the second period. Each team scored twice sending the game into halftime with an 8-5 score.

The goalies made their presence felt in the third period, with both making key saves and the Sharks scoring the only goal of the period to make the score 8-6 heading into the explosive final period.

Batchelder said the team is looking forward to representing the league at the national championships.

“The goal is to win that one too,” he said. “We’re just going to go and have some fun.”

GOAL SCORING SUMMARY:

Dulles (12)—Gui Foneia 4, Davorin Husadzinovic 3, Mike Foss 2, Nate Burkey, Tiago Silva, Marcos Chantel.

Tidewater (11)—Austin Kulp 2, Nathan Belcher 2, Doug Ernst 2, Shane Monroe 2, Jalon Brown, Chris Scrofani, Trevor Davis.

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Tom Leiss has vast soccer experience as a coach, team manager, administrator and referee, as well as nearly 30 years of playing experience in Virginia. A graduated from Virginia Commonwealth University with a degree in journalism, he has been covering all levels of sports since 1999. He is also currently the president of the Fredericksburg, Va.-based Commonwealth Soccer League and tournament director of the Commonwealth Classic.