The Blue Knights 01 Premier boys team wrap up a successful weekend in St George by winning UYSA’s 2012 President’s Cup.  In group play the tournament got off to a rocky start with a 3-3 draw against St George’s “Fire FC Premier” despite outshooting their opponent 29-4. 

 

For the second game, the team sharpened up their finishing and defending by defeating “Impact 01 Black” 4-1 with 19 shots during the game and only allowing 2 shots against. 

 

The third group play game featured a rematch of their State Cup Final nemesis against “La Roca 01 Premier”.  Knowing that they’d likely face them again in the final, the coaches decided to mix up the tactics for this game by adopting a more defensive counter-attacking style that limited La Roca to 7 shots in the game (all from well outside the final third) and Blue Knights were lethal in putting away 2 of their 9 shots on goal.  In the semi-final, they faced “UC Rage 01 Premier” and put on a dominating performance, despite the 1-0 score line, by outshooting their opponent 19-7 and 2 shots on the woodwork. 

 

In the final, it was “La Roca 01 Premier” for a rematch!  This time the coaches reverted to their usual tactics to control possession and caught La Roca unprepared – outshooting them 16-6 in the final, not allowing 1 shot in the final 3^rd of the field, and having a 2^nd half goal disallowed for a dubious passive offside.  This took the game to overtime where La Roca looked tired and hoping for PK’s and Blue Knights pressing hard for the win. 

 

Their hard work and continual possession was rewarded in the 2^nd overtime with a goal and the championship! 

 

The Blue Knights 01 Premier boys team completed an exciting run at this year’s (2011) State Cup advancing all the way to the final before losing 1-0 to “La Roca 01 Premier” to finish 2^nd place in the state. 

 

The tournament began with a humbling 3-1 loss to rivals “Sparta 01 Premier Blue” in the group stage – a defensive battle that only featured 10 shots between both teams (6 for BK and 4 for Sparta) who finished 1^st & 2^nd in the two previous Premier league seasons.  However, the boys responded positively to the loss with 2 straight impressive group play wins over “USA 01 White” (4-2 score line & shots 24-2) and “UC Rage 01 Premier” (5-3 score line & shots 21-4) who finished 3^rd in the Premier league behind Sparta and Blue Knights. 

 

Despite bizarre seeding by UYSA that put the Premier division’s top 3 teams in a 4 team “group of death” Blue Knights advanced to the quarter-final to face “Utah FC 01 Premier” – which Blue Knights handled easily beating them 3-0 and outshooting them 16-3.  UYSA brackets then setup a rematch with Sparta Blue for the Semi-Final which Blue Knights managed to win 2-1 in an epic battle featuring 10 to 8 shots in favor of Blue Knights.  The team was winning the game 1-0 with minutes to go and a crafty lofted ball into space allowed the BK player to beat his man, catch the Sparta keeper in ‘no man’s land’, and chip in a cheeky insurance goal to make it 2-0 with only stoppage time left.  The second goal proved necessary when on presumably the last play of the game, the Sparta player put in a beautiful upper 90 free kick from just across the half to make the final score 2-1. 

 

After this dramatic win, came the final that caught Blue Knights a little flat footed.  La Roca managed to have the better of the first half and going up a goal 1-0.  The second half was a reversal of the first half with Blue Knights ending the game outshooting their opponent 13 to 10, hitting the post twice, and having a seemingly certain goal cleared off the line by a La Roca defender after their goalie was beaten on the play.  One of La Roca’s shots also struck the Blue Knights bar for a dramatic finale.  The loss marked the first defeat to La Roca in 5 meetings (having gone 3-0-1 in the first 4 meetings) and was the only game Blue Knights has been shut out of in a span of 2 years – covering 63 competitive league or tournament games. 

Hats off to La Roca for beating Blue Knights that day in a memorable finale to State Cup!