Calgary United routs Drillers, takes CMISL title

Calgary United FC captured its second consecutive Canadian Major Indoor Soccer League Championship Saturday, and punched its ticket to the North American Arena Soccer Championships in Cincinnati, with a 9-3 trouncing over the rival Edmonton Drillers.

“I thought at the beginning it was tough as always. Hoping it wouldn’t be a one goal-game the whole time and it wasn’t, thankfully,” Calgary goalkeeper Marcel Galaszkiewicz said following the win.

United FC head coach Brian McDonnell couldn’t say enough about his last line of defence. “Hands down I think he is the best keeper in the Canadian division,” he said. “He does so many things that people don’t appreciate. He has kept us in every game all year and this one he won it for us hands down. His shot-stopping ability is second to none.”

The match started off with a bang, with a quick tally by the home team as United midfielder Nicolas Gonzalez scored his first of three goals on the night by taking a beautiful pass from Francisco Miron and beating the Drillers goalkeeper Jay Vetsch along the ground.

Despite the early tally, both Galaszkiewicz and Vetsch shined in the first quarter making numerous key stops to keep their respected teams in the match. However, United pulled away in the second quarter and eventually sealed the game in the third quarter with a barrage of tallies.

Not even a minute after Miron made it 2-0 for Calgary, United FC forward Arthur Paszkowski ripped home a juicy rebound to make it 3-0 and capped off a two-goal outburst in a 35-second span for the United.

Edmonton was forced to call a timeout following the goal. The timeout paid immediate dividends as less than 20 seconds after Calgary extended its lead to three, Drillers defender Chris Devlin converted on a nice feed to get Edmonton back in the game. He threw it into the top of the net leaving no chance for Galaszkiewicz to stop it.

“They usually are able to come back on us every time we are up three or four goals. So I think for us to hold our composure after they scored that goal was a good turning point for us,” Miron said. Paszkowski converted his second of the game at the start of the second half which made the game 5-1 and set the stage for the United rout.

“I think coming out right after halftime and scoring that fifth goal. I think it broke their backs a bit and we were able to open them up a bit and play through the middle and score a few goals,” McDonnell said. “It was just a good performance by us all around. I think we had the strongest squad we have had all year.”

This season wasn’t without it controversy as the United FC had been awarded their previous two wins by default over Kitsap, which didn’t sit well with Drillers coach Kevin Poissant.

“The other disappointing part is this game decided who went to Cincinnati, despite the fact that Calgary got six points handed to them by default,” he said. “We felt that that didn’t really fairly reflect what the season looked like this year and I thought we were the stronger team, but when you’re gifted six points it’s always going to be tough.”

Calgary will now travel to Cincinnati next week for the 2011 North American Arena Soccer Championships where it will compete against the best teams from the Professional Arena Soccer League. Last year United was beat by the California Cougars in the first round of play, so this year Galaszkiewicz and his teammates are hoping for a better result.

“Just keep the composure at the very end. We ended up losing that game in the final two minutes when they scored four goals. We just have to be positive, not get down on each other and we’ll pull it off somehow,” he said.