With fewer than half its players available, the Weston Fury 87/88 Premier boys’ soccer team had to play most of the South Florida United Youth Soccer Association Premier Late Season Championships semifinal match 10 against 11 and the last 12 minutes 9 against 11. Team Boca White prevailed, but not until Weston was down to nine exhausted players in the final quarter of the match at Royal Oaks Park in Miami Lakes April 8.
The Fury, with midfielders playing defense and nearly an entire starting team unavailable, put up a fight and held Team Boca White scoreless the entire first half. And it was Weston that nearly scored first, but midfielder Iker Ibanez’s shot from 35 yards out bounded off the crossbar in the 26th minute. Ten minutes later, sweeper Matt Mobley cleared a sure Team Boca shot off the goal line and the score held nil-nil at the half.
Again in the second half, it was Weston that nearly drew first blood. This time midfielder Eugenio Lascurain’s shot in the 50th minute was cleared by a defender, with the keeper off his line. Fifteen minutes later, Team Boca failed to convert an excellent scoring opportunity.
Holding off one of South Florida’s best sides for 90 minutes playing shorthanded was too much to ask of Weston. All of Team Boca’s goals came in the final quarter of the match. They scored twice within 120 seconds, in the 67th and 69th minutes. When midfielder Jaime Villarreal limped off the field in the 75th minute, suffering from cramps most of the second half, Weston was down to 9 on 11 and Boca scored twice more in the closing minutes.
Head coach Alvin James was unavailable. Assistant coach Rene Osorio started Michael Anderson at keeper, Mobley at sweeper (usually a midfielder), Chris Bent (usually a midfielder) and Jeremy Weber at fullback (more often a midfielder), Mario Figueroa at stopper, Ibanez, an ill Lascurain and Villarreal in the midfield and Rodrigo Paredes and David Gordon, still recovering from a serious ankle injury, at forward. Team manager and emergency coach Eugenio Lascurain assisted Osorio on the sideline.
Five other Weston players were unable to play due to injury, five were ineligible to play because they were added to the roster after the early season and two were unavailable.
Team Boca got off 16 shots in the match, seven of them on goal, and defensive-minded Weston managed only seven shots, four of them on goal.
Team Boca will play Kendall Soccer Coalition 87/88 Black for the title.
Weston is next scheduled to play in the Challenge Round of 16 for the 2006 Florida Youth Soccer Association Premier State Cup Memorial Day weekend at Ed Radice Soccer Complex in Tampa. Each of the winners of four groups of four playing in the Challenge Round will advance to the Final Four in June.
