Rapids Shell-Shocked But Not Beaten

I really don't want to talk much about this game. Needless to say it was great for 90 minutes before it turned into a 3 minute meltdown by Matt Pickens and Brian Mullan. The Rapids were clearly the better team on the night, even the FSL fans admit it, but the soccer gods are apparently against us as a Pickens blunder, a bad double bounce, and a Mullan foul conspired to deny us the win and the Rocky Mountain Cup.

The Rapids completely outplayed FSL this game and deserved the win, only to fumble it away. There are tow silver linings. 1. FSL never beat us this year and 2. with the draw the Rapids play in the Eastern Conference for the playoffs. I'd gladly swap to the Western Conference to have won this game though.

Other Observations:

• The playoff games are as follows:

Thursday Oct 28th, 7pm, DSG Park, ESPN2

Saturday Nov 6th, 2pm Columbus Crew Stadium - Telefutura (and maybe KWGN?)

• Conor Casey's goal tied him with Omar for the team lead, so Omar had to go out and get another one to win the team's Golden Boot.
• Omar Cummings was named Class VI Player of the Year and Marvell Wynne was named Defender of the Year. Congrats to both players, and thanks for coming by to accept the awards in front of the section.
• I am now the proud owner (seriously!) of an Ian Joyce jersey, the name I randomly drew when I was one of the winners of the "Jersey off the Back" promotion. I've always wanted a Rapids GK jersey.
• Pablo had a great game, and was obviously upset at the end of the game. Great to see the combination of passion and control.

Player of the Game: Kosuke Kimura and Anthony Wallace. The outside back duo had solid games and each picked up an assist. There was no easy way to decide between them, so they both get it.