FC Milwaukee rallies to beat U-18 Fire in regular season finale
Both squads advance to playoffs in Greensboro, N.C. as wildcards
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By Curt Herron
With a playoff trip already assured, the Chicago Fire Academy U-18 squad entered the weekend with a chance to win the Frontier Division title.
But missing many of its regulars for one reason or another, those hopes were dashed on Saturday by Sockers FC at Toyota Park's practice field.
While Sockers FC was wrapping up the division crown on Sunday, the Fire took on an FC Milwaukee squad that needed to win to make the playoffs.
Although Chicago did its best to try to prevent that from happening, FC Milwaukee scored a pair of late goals to claim a 4-3 win in Bridgeview.
Sam Krenzien scored his third and fourth goals of the match during the final 15 minutes of play to rally FC Milwaukee (9-6-3, 30 points).
The Wisconsin squad earned a wildcard spot for the playoffs in Greensboro, North Carolina as a result of their overall points per game average.
That's the same way the Fire (10-4-3, 33) earned their Greensboro trip after finishing with a 1.88 average while going 15-7-4 in all matches.
FC Milwaukee, which had a 1.61 average for all of its matches, advanced to the Development Academy playoffs for the first time in its history.
The Fire, who recently had won six straight during a 7-0-1 unbeaten streak, suffered consecutive losses for the first time since March 25-27.
Sunday's seven-goal outburst was the U-18's highest scoring match of the season and also tied the most goals that they'd allowed in a game.
With regulars like Billy McGuinness, Mitch Albrecht, Harry Shipp, Chris Prince all unavailable, the Fire had to start a few U-16s on Sunday.
Both squads struggled to make anything happen in the opening half and the play suffered particularly as the result of a drenching shower.
After the visitors struck first, the Fire tied things when Manny Guzman sent a pass to Wojciech Wojcik, who headed the ball in for a goal.
Following another exchange of goals, Chicago moved in front for the first time when Guzman connected to give the hosts a 3-2 advantage.
The play was originated by Oliver Mayer, who sent a pass to Tyler Engel, who then gave the ball off to Guzman to give the Fire the lead.
But they wouldn't hold it for long as Krenzien got the equalizer a short time later and then headed in the final goal in the late going.
After taking a few days off, the Fire returns to practices this weekend in order to prepare for the next part of their season, the playoffs.
They hope to have several key performers back and healthy again when they kick off the 32-team competition, which runs from June 25-29.
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