Coming off their first ever Regional Championship, the Xplosion hoped to carry that momentum towards the chance to play for the National Championships. The Xplosion came through the most difficult bracket at Regionals, and they would have to accomplish the same thing at Nationals if they were to advance. With the new (6) team, (1) bracket format, each team would play (3) preliminary games and the top two teams would advance. The Xplosion again drew a very difficult schedule of Triangle Utd (NC), Lower Merion Velez, and CZ Elite (CA-S). They would also be without one of their starting strikers for at least the first game of the tournament. In the first game vs Triangle, the Xplosion came out very strong and controlled play early in the half. Triangle would take the lead 1-0 about 15 minutes into the game when their striker knocked the ball loose out of Drew’shands and flicked it towards the goal. Somehow the ball hit off the crossbar, dropped to the ground and the backspin on the ball brought it back into the goal. About 5 minutes later, the Xplosion chances were dealt a serious blow when our starting CMF, Steve Neumann was red carded for a hard tackle. The Xplosion would play the remainder of this game and next without our key playmaker. Playing with 10 men, the Xplosion continued to fight and early in the 2nd half Colin Skelly scored off a scramble in front of the goal off a corner kick to tie the game at 1-1. The Xplosion began to tire late in the game when Triangle spread the field, but the back 4 and Drew kept them off the scoreboard and the Xplosion earned a much needed 1 point. The second game of the tournament was against our rivals from E-PA Lower Merion. Lower Merion was coming off a 4-1 win over eventual winless Javanon, and knew that a win or tie would put them in great poistion to advance to the finals based on their final game vs Dallas Texans Houston who were losing that same day 4-1 to Triangle. The games was played as expected. A hard, physical contest with limited scoring chances. The Velez looked to have the fresher legs in the opening half and attacked the Xplosion frequently. A couple of key saves by Drew, and a shot off the cross bar kept the game scoreless at half. The Xplosion came out with more intensity in the 2nd half and the game heated up. There were 7 yellow cards shown in the half as the teams fought for that key winning goal. The Xplosion started to take control of the game and just missed scoring on a 1-on-1 that was shot just wide of the net. The Xplosion had numerous corner kicks throughout the half but could not connect. Late in the game the Velez had a great opportunity off a side volley that Drew got his hand on to push to the side and the game ended 0-0. As the team entered the 3rd and final day of preliminary games, we needed a win vs CZ Elite (1-0-1) and a loss by either Triangle or Lower Merion. With a heavy rain and wind at our back in the first half, the team controlled much of the play in the half. Midway through the first half we lost Brian Powers (L-FB) for the rest of the game due to injury suffered on a late tackle that resulted in a yellow card. A strike by Neumann hit off the post midway through the first half. In the 35th minute a cross and head ball, ended up to Neumann who headed it in the back of the net for a 1-0 halftime lead. With Merion up 1-0 and Trinalge tied, we knew that the best that we could hope for was a tie in one of those games which would mean that we would have to win by 3-4 goals. Playing against the strong wind in the 2nd half, the game began to open up. When Triangle scored on the field behind us, we knew that we could no longer cling to the 1-0 lead and would need to win 3-0 to have a chance. As we pushed forward, we became exposed in the back and CZ Elite was able to capitalize on a cross and finish in the 60th minute. Pushing forward again for the win, CZ Elite countered on a 5v3 and again found the net in the 83rd minute for the 2-1 win. The win by CZ Elite earned them a shot in the final vs Triangle Utd. Although we were disappointed by the results in Nationals, it was a great season by the team that saw them win the State Cup, Region Premier League and Region 1 Championships. With missing players due to personal reasons, red card and injury’s we never seemed to get in synch at Nationals. The boys are now off to high school and college (Schoenle, Tessler, Guerrero), but are all committed to getting back to Nationals again next year.