Mitwest Avoids Disaster, Pull Off Massive Comeback For FCS Title Berth
FINAL: Midwest FC- 9, Lansing City Futsal- 6. Game. Of. The. Year. The founders' rivalry did not disappoint in this playoff semi-final between the two sides. There has been bad blood boiling between these sides for a few series now, but you could really start to see the emotions of what this game means throughout this series through round robin play all the way up to this playoff matchup. The game started off with Mitwest on top after fill-in goalkeeper David Saltsman came out to make a play on the ball but would end up costing an empty net goal, just one of the few Omar Lahbiki would get. Team captain Marco Bernardini would get himself on the board as well as goalkeeper, yes the goalkeeper Saltsman after he made a PK save and with the Mitwest keeper Micheal Forbes taking the pen for Mitwest, that left a wide open net for David to take a rip at, and it paid off as he got himself a goal and the Lansing City Arena into the game. Omar would score before the half and we were level at 2 a piece going into the locker room. The second half was where the scoring would open up for both sides, in fact it looked like Lansing had sealed this game up completely after the came out of the locker room and turned that tie into a 5-2 lead thanks to a cheeky Bernardini chip goal and very exciting celebration to follow that. Things would change and Mitwest was not looking to crash out of the playoff as they went on a massive run. Davide Di Poce and Lahbiki would highlight close to all the goals that put Mitwest on a scoring spree with Costa Wells joining in on the party too. Lansing would tie the game up at 6 but Davide would get Mitwest back in front and a Lahbiki pen and a empty net goal from Wells would finish this game off at 9-6 in favor of Mitwest. Things would get chippy near the end with many red cards dished out to each team as that will get cleared up with the league officials and if there are any suspensions to be enforced for the title match between Mitwest and Migos. With this win, Mitwest may have just had the biggest turnaround in FCS history, going winless in the previous series, to opening up the series with a loss, they have not lost since that series opening loss, as they clinch their second berth in the FCS Title, with their first ending in heartbreaking fashion in a penalty shootout, scoring zero of their pens. They look to get their first series title in their history within the FCS. For Lansing City, they have more questions to answer this off season then they hopefully had planned on, starting the series off with a loss in the rematch for the previous series title game against migos, but a blowout against Flint SC was hopefully going to be the turning point for Lansing, but back to back weekends losing to Mitwest would show nothing has gotten better with Lansing. Part of their struggles could be from missing their team leader Jeremy Klepal who is a massive game changer when he is on the court for the team in black. Needless to say we have one more week of intense FCS action, Mitwest vs Migos @ The Lansing City Arena, Saturday 18th: Time TBD.
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by Chris Mcauliffe