U-18 Fire come up short in quest for trip to nationals

Baltimore Bays get two late scores to claim 2-1 victory

CLICK TO SEE MATCH PHOTOS

By Curt Herron

The Chicago Fire Academy hoped to send both its U-16 and U-18 teams to next week's Development Academy National Finals in Carson, California.

But the Fire's goal came up a bit short and instead Baltimore Bays Chelsea is sending a pair of squads to the finals at the Home Depot Center.

In Tuesday's final match of U-17/18 pool play, Baltimore rallied from a late 1-0 deficit to beat the Fire 2-1 in Browns Summit, North Carolina.

The Fire (16-8-5), needing a win to go 2-0-1 to win their pool, couldn't hold off Baltimore (23-4-6), who only needed a draw to take the pool.

On Monday, Baltimore's U-16 team finished 3-0 in pool play to join the Fire as one of the eight U-15/16 teams that earned spots to nationals.

Baltimore finally connected with about eight minutes left in the match at Bryan Park when Brian Graham collected the first of his two goals.

With the Fire packing in things on defense, the Maryland squad found an opening when Eli Dennis headed a pass to Graham, who was near the net.

Graham, who will be attending the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, headed a shot past Fire keeper Tom Serratore to even things up.

But due the tiebreaker, Baltimore was suddenly in the drivers seat with just a few minutes left, forcing the Fire to try to get another goal.

Chicago brought everything that it had forward in an attempt to move back in front, even sending Serratore toward the opposite net for a time.

But in their desperation to score, the Fire allowed Graham to get free on a breakaway and he connected about five minutes after his first goal.

The Fire had a few chances to try to even things up but attempts by Art Garza and Wojciech Wojcik were stopped shortly before the whistle blew.

It was a disappointing ending to a match that started off well for the Fire but eventually took a turn for the worse due to a significant injury.

Chicago grabbed an early lead to give it momentum against a potent Baltimore squad, who had outscored its previous two opponents by a 9-3 margin.

Chris Prince helped set up the initial score of the match when he got free for a close shot, which was deflected away, resulting in a corner kick.

On the subsequent corner, a couple of Fire players had shot tries blocked before Scott Lakin was able to connect about 13 minutes into the match.

But the excitement didn't last for long since about two minutes later Chicago suffered a loss that quickly dampened the enthusiasm of the score.

Bryan Ciesiulka, who returned for the playoffs following a two-month injury, got fouled on a play which resulted in a yellow card being issued.

After the midfielder was helped off the field, his loss was quickly apparent since the Fire struggled to make anything else happen offensively.

Meanwhile, Baltimore began to apply the pressure on defenders Mitch Albrecht, Scott Lakin, Brian Lunar and Billy McGuinness and keeper Serratore.

The Fire keeper made a huge save about half an hour into the match when he deflected a liner from Mamadou Kansaye that bounced off the crossbar.

As the opening half was winding down, Harry Shipp managed to record a pair of shots for the Fire, but a grounder and a long try were both halted.

Serratore was tested often during the early part of the second half but he managed to stop everything that came his way to keep the Fire ahead.

About 30 minutes into the second half, Jeremy Kirkwood fired off a short shot but McGuinness was able to head the ball over the net for a corner.

A short time later, Peter Caringi got open in front of the net and sent a header to Serratore, who punched the ball away for another corner kick.

Right after that, Trevor Wheeler was able to clear an attempt from Caringi that looked like it might be headed toward the net for the equalizer.

Over the next few minutes, Graham and Geaton Caltabiano were also stopped on threatening attempts before Graham found the net to tie things up.