Rocket Robin’s Ontario Round Up

Deadlines don't always fit the narrative. Here I sit just one day before the League1 Ontario Premier Division Final takes place but the editor insists the deadline for this month's Sentinel is tonight. I'll just summarize how the playoffs have gone so far from whittling down the six teams that made post season play down to the two finalists in five action packed days. I didn't expect the games would be held on different days to make it possible to see them all. I was prepared to have to make a hard choice of which side of the GTA I may be at on the Wednesday or Saturday night then the final tomorrow. Staggering the games has kept the league in the headlines and message boards each day as there's a good story everyday. Also conveniently for me, York United FC and Toronto FC II were out of town. Let's review how each playoff result has gone: There were seven of the twenty-two teams that had pulled ahead of the pack with a month to go. Down to the last weekend of the regular season and some teams were faced with 'must win' games. About as close as the CPL season with one win sending a team up three places at a time. Ten games that last weekend rather than eleven between August 19th to 21st but oh now we notice that because Guelph United moved up a game by two weeks, they have nothing to do except wait and cheer.

Guelph looked comfortable in fifth but watched as Saturday afternoon Simcoe County Rovers beat Hamilton United at Tim Hortons Field in a specially promoted game before a CPL match on a last minute goal to win 2-1 and pass them into fifth place, then Sunday afternoon Prostars FC travelled to Burlington to win 4-3 and grab the sixth spot knocking Guelph into seventh with a few Guelph players in the stands. The defending champions are out!

Quarterfinals:

Wednesday August 24: Fourth place North Toronto Nitros (13W-3L-5T for 44 points) host fifth place Simcoe County Rovers (13W-3L -5T for 44 points). Tiebreaker NTN 37GF-19GA better than SCR 37GF-23GA. Nitros were the ones every other team wanted to face. They had played the Wednesday before at Woodbridge Strikers in a game postponed from July because of a lightning storm. This game ended 0-0. Now Friday night and they traveled to Whitby to play Darby FC and lose 2-1 with their goal on a PK. Teams like Woodbridge and Darby are fighting for a top twelve place to stay in the L1O Premier Division which will split the bottom ten finishers into a second-tier Championship Division in 2024. Tonight's game was scoreless until near the end. Rovers subbed in Ryley Wishart at 79 minutes and he headed in a cornerkick at 82 minutes. Ethan Beckford made a great solo run up the right sideline at 86 minutes and shot a 20 yarder into the top left corner to insure Rovers moved on.

Thursday August 25: Third place Alliance United (13W-2L-6T for 45 points) host sixth place Prostars FC (14W-6L-1T for 43 points). This game was held at Vaughan Grove the home of Woodbridge Strikers because Alliance who usually play at Centennial College and Varsity Stadium (both associated with the University of Toronto) do not have access to the fields once the schools need them for their students. OK also a 9:00pm start. ProStars were outsiders until that last weekend. They played Burlington FC and had a rather comfortable 3-1 lead going into halftime but a player earned a second Yellow card for complaining about a call not going his way and was sent off. They had to play with ten men for the second half and were still good enough to score one more insurance goal before two last minute Burlington goals made it close. They won 4-3 to grab the last spot but were now without a starting midfielder and exhausted. Alliance scored two first half goals and added two more in the second to win easily 4-0. The goal scorers were Nirun Sivananthan book-ending younger brother's Atchu Sivanathan two goals. They are U of T alumni well on their way to being medical specialists and should laugh at any CPL $40K starting contract.

Semifinals: The pairings weren't known because of reseeding after the Quarterfinals. Saturday August 27 First place Vaughan Shooters (18W-0L-3T for 57 points) host QF winning Simcoe County Rovers Yes Vaughan are undefeated. Their last three regular season games they scored 7, 6, and 5 goals in compiling a league best 76 'goals for'. Surprise? Ethan Beckford scored first for SCR at 11 minutes. Must have been quite a halftime pep talk because Dylan Carreiro tied the game at 47 minutes. Orlendis Carlos Benitez Hernandez scored the winner at 75 minutes, short side top corner, after coming on only 6 minutes earlier. OCBH had signed two successive emergency CPL contracts for Forge FC and when they expired was sent back to the Azzurri but their scoring talent is so deep he's not been able to regain his starting place. Forge would get him into games with 8 minutes to go and tell him to kill the game off rather than take a shot and turn the ball over. That was put to good use tonight as at the end he ran to the corner and won a cornerkick then two throw-ins to use up the added time. Sunday August 28 Second place Blue Devils FC (14W-2L-5T for 57 points) host QF winning Alliance United This game was moved on a few days notice from Blue Devils preferred home ground of Sheridan College to Bronte Athletic Field (both in Oakville) because of school policies. Alliance were down a starting forward and winger from their QF win as two late signings were on non-compete clauses when they came from Blue Devils.This game was the most back and forth with Alliance opening the scoring at 8 minutes from Artem Tesker, Blue Devils scoring at 18 and 34 minutes with Matthew Santos then Khody Ellis to take the lead into halftime. Samuel Gardner at 67 minutes tied for Alliance then Taya Ilyass scored the game winner at 71 minutes. Definitely the roughest of the playoff games with Blue Devils defender Adam Czerkawski spotted after the game with an arm in a sling. All these games are available for replay at the L1O YouTube page with commentary. What will I write about next month? The final and something about this year's team standings influencing the 2023 season. Rocket Robin

robing@eol.ca twitter @RocketRobin01

Action from the Blue Devils v Alliance United Play Off semi final that Blue Devils took 3-2 seeting up a final against Vaughan Azzurri