Welcome back to the final installment in our 2017 US Power Soccer Conference Cup Series blog! We moved into the last day of competition on Sunday with all three conferences (Presidents, Champions, and Premier) down to semifinals. It was a terrific end to the weekend with all of the semifinal and final games for the three conferences taking place simultaneously (unfortunately that means our attention was divided). Anyway, we’ll start with the Presidents Conference which featured a matchup between the hometown RHI Indy Cruisers and the Northeast Passage Wildcats while ASPO Force faced off against the west coast BORP Crushers.
The Wildcats/Indy Cruisers game rivaled all others this weekend in excitement. Northeast Passage took the opening kick-off all the way down the court to immediately go up 1-0 and followed up with a second goal just four minutes later. But the Indy Cruisers, led by tournament MVP Michael Rodriguez, knew there was almost a full game left to play. Over the next half hour of power soccer they were able to pour on four consecutive goals to lead 4-2.
The Wildcats were able to fight back with two goals at the end of regulation to send the game to overtime. After ten minutes of back and forth in overtime it became sudden death where the Wildcats were able to pressure the Indy Cruisers and win the match!
Meanwhile, the BORP Crushers continued to crush every opponent they faced. They passed by the ASPO Force in the semifinals and approached the NEP Wildcats in the final. In the group stage BORP controlled the game against the Wildcats 4-2. In the final they were able to do just the same by slowing down the pace and maintaining possession to achieve a 4-1 victory in the Championship game!
In the Champions Conference there was another west coast/east coast matchup with the San Jose Steamrollers defeating the PRHC Chariots in the semifinals thanks to a strong performance by Stanley Kuang. Despite solid passing and several chances the Steamrollers would be stopped in the final by the hard-hitting GLASA Chicago Fire.
All weekend in the Premier conference we saw the Circle City Rollers looking for their 7th national title. They weren’t truly challenged until the semifinals where the Minnesota Shockwave proved to be worthy competitors. The Shockwave features two US National Team players in Nathan Mayer and Pete Winslow. The Shockwave had the game tied early and often but couldn’t hold on in the end due to the offensive attack of Michael Archer and (Premier Conference top-scorer) Natalie Russo.
The Rollers would face off in the final against the RHI Sudden Impact who overcame the Minnesota Magic in yet another overtime match. The Sudden Impact featured a trio of Dickey siblings (Jordan, Zach, and Katie) playing together for a full season for the first time.
In the Premier Conference final, the Circle City Rollers met some resistence early on from the Sudden Impact, but it was short lived. No team this weekend could stop the Circle City Rollers and they took the chance to grab their 7th national title.
It was an amazing tournament and we are so happy we could share it with all of you. I wish i could say we made it home easily after that, but there were a few bumps along the way. We were scheduled to fly out and complete our trip to Indiana at 3pm on Monday, so we grabbed late-breakfast at the excellent Another Broken Egg Cafe (where I had the fanciest chocolate milk I’ve ever seen). All weekend we heard people mention the Indianapolis Motor Speedway as a must-see attraction so we spent the rest of our free time there (which was very cool to see).
We headed to the airport after, but there was some wicked storm coming up the east coast (4 inches of rain in PA). So our flight got pushed back to 4pm…then cancelled completely… We were able to change course and leave for Chicago at 9pm then to New Hampshire at 11:30pm. The first flight got postponed twice as well…but luckily we made it to Chicago just in time and made it back to NH shortly after. As fun as the trip was it is good to be home! Check out the links below for more info from the tournament:
Athletes Roll 