Kitsap Pumas Capture PDL Crown
The Kitsap Pumas captured the 2011 PDL Championship by downing the Laredo Heat 1-0 Saturday. The teams met after the Pumas had defeated former champion the Thunder Bay Chill 3-1 in the semifinals, while the Heat knocked off the Long Island Rough Riders by a 4-1 score to enter the championship match. The match was played in at the Pumas home field in Bremerton, Washington.
It didn’t take long for the Pumas to earn the game-winning goal. Eleven minutes into the match, Kitsap’s Bryan Burke sent a low cross into the box, which teammate Robby Christner knocked in for the only goal of the match. Laredo had a last minute chance to tie the score and take it into extra time, but Gregory Mulamba’s shot hit the post and Kitsap celebrated its first national title. Burke, 22, from the University of San Fransisco, was the MVP of the match.
The Pumas won the 2011 PDL Northwest Division regular season crown with a 12-1-3 record. Founded in 2008, the club is owned by Robin Waite and were led to the PDL crown by Coach Peter Fewing. He had this to say about his squad.
“They’re a very remarkable group of guys, and that’s why they win,” Fewing said. “You have to give all the credit to these players. They’ve stuck together, been very committed and they’ve been very disciplined. I do not think we would have the team that we have without the discipline that the guys have and the commitment they have for each other. It’s a special group.”
Team captain Daniel Scott shared his thoughts on winning the crown. “I don’t think words can really describe it,” Scott said. “I mean, if I think if we look back to the beginning of the season there was so much sacrifice that goes into this team. A good amount of us live over in the Seattle area and have to make the commute over here three, four days a week, sometimes five times on the weekend, so there’s a lot of personal sacrifice that we put in, but it paid off and it was worth every minute of it.”
The Laredo Heat, coached by Israel Collazo, topped the PDL’s Mid South Division during the regular season with an 11-3-2 mark. The Heat edged out the Chivas El Paso Patriots by two points to take the Mid South title while scoring 35 goals and only allowing 11 in their 16 league matches. Congratulations to both clubs for reaching the playoff finals, a great achievement.
Earlier in the week, the PDL announced its All-League squad drawn from the 64 team USL league.
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