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1/5/2006
Soccer 365
Blast Claim Third Title In Four Years
Before a national audience on ESPN2 the Baltimore Blast and St. Louis meet for the MISL championship. When it came down to it, only one goal would matter to would matter to decide the championship. That goal was scored by Machel Millwood and it gave the Baltimore Blast their third championship in four years. The stage for Millwood’s goal was set on Friday in game one of the two game series. Baltimore took the game 4-2 behind a strong goalkeeping effort by Blast reserve goalkeeper Sanaldo who stopped 22 of 24 shots. The first team keeper Sagu had injured himself earlier in the week during practice. The Blast got goals from Robbie Aristodemo, Giuliano Celenza, Adauto Neto and Jonathan Steele. Sandre Naumoski and Joe Reiniger scored for the Steamers. “Sanaldo played unbelievably,” Baltimore player-coach Danny Kelly said. “We couldn't have won the game without him playing the way he did. The way he stepped in like he's been playing all year was phenomenal.” The series shifted to St. Louis to decide the Championship Series. Since the series was only two games a “Golden Goal” series tiebreaker would be played if the series was split. St. Louis seemed to have the advantage due to their 15-1 home record during the regular season and playoffs and having a crowd of 16,061 behind you does not hurt either. The Steamers did take advantage by winning the second game 4-1. Jeff Dimaria got the first half’s lone goal to give the Steamers the advantage. Jamar Beasly and Shaun David padded the lead in the third quarter. The Blast did get a consolation goal from player/coach Danny Kelly. Genoni Martinez finished up the scoring for the Steamers. The Blast in a last ditch effort pulled the goalie in favor of sixth attacker Lee Tschantret. The Steamer’s played possession ball every time they would get the ball to kill of any Blast rally. “When it was 3-1, we thought we could come back with the sixth attacker. But once it was 4-1, it was going to be tough. We knew that they had come out so fast and so aggressive in the first quarter, and with the great crowd they had, I don’t know if they were getting tired or not. We just knew that we were in the same position against Milwaukee, and we were trying to stay in the game and get it to (the ‘golden goal.’)” Baltimore midfielder Robbie Aristodemo said. The series overtime was more intense than the regular game. The Blast quickly put behind the disappointment of losing the game. Then at 6:33 Millwood became the championship hero and was voted MVP of the playoffs. Now with this season over the MISL can now look forward to next season. The league will add the Detroit Ignition to start play for 2006-2007. In addition a expansion team in Orlando,Fl and Newark,NJ to start in 2007.
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