The final match is the Cape Cod Crusaders vs Boulder Rapids Reserves. Game will be at Cape Cod, shown live at 8 pm EDT, Saturday on Fox Sports World.
Since the Crusaders play in Vermont's division, I'm fairly familiar with them. Here's some background info on their possible starters. Cape Cod is a deep squad, so this is list is just a guess. Forwards: Casey Schmidt - Newbury Park, CA. Boston College SR. Led Crusaders in scoring last season. Suffered severe facial injury playing for BC last fall and is now just coming back into form. Big East coaches' pick as pre-season player of the year for the upcoming college season. Nicola Chicco - Claymont, DE. University of New Hampshire JR. Picked up the scoring slack in Schmidt's absence earlier this season. Midfielders: Luke Vercollone - Pembroke, MA. Seton Hall University. JR. Flank midfielder with good dribbling skills. Bryan Harkin - Derry, N. Ireland. Fairfield University. SR. Attacking midfielder capable of creating goals and scoring them. Set Fairfield assists record (9) in 2000. All-MAAC second team in 2001. Attended Liverpool training academy before opting for college in the US. Ian Pilarski - Pittsford, NY. Cornell University . JR. Left-side player capable of playing defense or midfield - his precise crossing ability helped him lead Cornell in assists last season and receive honorable mention All-Ivy League honors. Methembe Ndlovu - unspectacular but consistently good midfield veteran. Former member of Zimbabwe national team. MVP of A-League Boston Bulldogs in 2001. Chris Corcoran - Marshfield, MA. St. John's University. SO. Composed young midfield controller. Questionable after suffering hamstring injury in Conference championship game July 28. Backs: Paul Chase - Weymouth, MA. Boston College. JR. Team captain and stalwart for one of the best defenses in the PDL this season. Played as a freshman at Providence before transferring to BC. Scott Palguta - Forked River, NJ. Cornell University. SO. Dangerous on set plays and comes up big in big games. Scored first two goals of this season in first two playoff games. Scored a double-OT winner over Syracuse last fall. Martin McNutt - steady veteran from Ireland with experience in English first division (Sheffield Wednesday) and Irish leagues. Keeper Troy Perkins - Worthington, OH. University of South Florida. JR. Second in the PDL this year with .87 GAA.
Ha. I played against Pilarski 2 years ago in the state finals (NY-W), and he was crap. He had always been All-State and even region, and was very highly touted, but he had a stinker of a game. Good to see that he's doing well now, though - I like what the Crusaders' owners (Mass. Pro Soccer?) are doing with their system, and I think the Cape Cod success is, to some degree, indicative of their bottom-up plan.
i have also played against Pilarkski as he was a senior at Pittsford Sutherland while i was a sophmore at Brighton Highschool and he had good games both times we played them. he is a very good attacking player with good vision.
Could someone tell me the path these two teams have taken to get to the finals. Im with the Texas Spurs and Colorado spanked us on their home field last month.. Who did they beat to get there, and who beat Bradenton??
This link will take you to pdlsoccer.com and a picture of the PDL playoffs so far: http://www.pdlsoccer.com/playoffs.htm Cape Cod beat Bradenton 3-2 in the semis