Originally posted to Voyageurs Soccer Talk message board.
Game Report from Rochester Democrat and Chronicle...and the Road Trip
Chronicles
by Grasshopper
Bring on the Thunder
Rhinos head to A-League finals thanks
to Demmin
By Jeff DiVeronica
Democrat and Chronicle
(September 25, 2000) -- For three seasons,
Craig Demmin has saved the
Rochester
Rhinos by keeping balls out of the net.
Last night, he did
it by putting one in.
Locked in a scoreless tie in the 80th
minute and
fighting for their playoff lives
against gritty Toronto, Demmin scored
his
first goal as a Rhino. His leaping header off
Carlos Zavala's
free-kick cross to the far
post gave Rochester a 1-0 win and sent
the
Rhinos to a third straight A-League
Championship Game and fourth in
five
years.
"That's why he's our MVP," injured team
captain Tommy
Tanner said about Demmin
in a boisterous Rhinos locker room.
The
three-time Eastern Conference champion Rhinos (21-9-3) will play
the
three-time champs from the West, the Minnesota Thunder (24-5-4),
for the
title for the third consecutive year. The match is at 8:05 p.m.
Saturday at
Frontier Field, where the Rhinos are 17-1.
Tickets go on sale at 10 a.m.
today. Season-ticket holders have until 5
p.m. Wednesday to buy their
seats.
The Rhinos beat Minnesota 3-1 at Frontier in 1998, but the
Thunder
returned the favor last year, winning 3-1 on its own home
turf.
Without Demmin's first goal since 1997 when he played in
Jackson,
Miss., fourth-seeded Rochester might not have survived No. 7 Toront
and
made it to Saturday night.
"A player under pressure elevates his
game, and sometimes you find an
unusual player doing an extraordinary thing,"
coach Pat Ercoli said of
Demmin, the hulking, 6-foot-2, 200-pound native of
Trinidad and Tobago
who has been voted Rhinos MVP by his teammates in all
three of his
seasons here.
Demmin sure elevated on the goal. He was
about 10 yards out and just
wide of the left post and soared above two
defenders and teammate
Eduardo Sebrango. The ball slipped just below the
crossbar and above
goalkeeper Theo Zagar.
"The ball was struck well
and stayed in the air to give me some time,"
Demmin said.
Said Tanner:
"He jumped three feet above them."
Zavala (four assists) said the ball is
usually supposed to go to the near
post and someone is supposed to head it to
the back post. "You have to
switch if off sometimes," said Zavala, a halftime
substitute for Tim Hardy
at left defender. "Obviously, with Craig up there it
helps."
"You've been saving that for three years for when it really
mattered, huh?"
defender Scott Schweitzer said, teasing Demmin.
Demmin
wanted to go forward earlier in the game. The Rhinos
desperately needed a
goal. A scoreless tie would have meant 30 minutes
of sudden-death overtime.
If the Lynx (16-12-5) managed to keep OT
scoreless, they would have won the
two-game, total-goal series because
they had more home goals based on
Friday's 1-1 tie in Canada.
"I was itching to go up sooner," said Demmin,
who knew without 6-3
forward Onandi Lowe, who was suspended for the match but
can play
Saturday, the Rhinos lacked one of their aerial
threats.
Schweitzer, of all people -- Schweitzer will admit he's not
known for
playing if safe -- told Demmin to wait until the last 20 minutes
before
going up. "I felt we really needed me up there," he said.
"He
definitely deserves (the praise)," Zavala said of the Rhinos' quiet,
classy
leader who has been wearing the captain's armband in
Tanner's
absence.
The Rhinos had already hit two crossbars -- Ernest
Inneh on a header in
the first half and Bill Sedgewick on a 20-yard blast in
the 76th minute.
They began to flood the Toronto zone and took nine corner
kicks in the
second half, but couldn't score.
"Our blood started
racing and the fans got more into it," goalie Scott
Vallow
said.
Fatigue was setting in for Toronto, which had the thinner roster,
but
Rochester still needed a spark.
"I thought we'd go to OT because
that's how it has gone this year. We've
had to fight for everything,"
Schweitzer said.
But fittingly their MVP rose to the
occasion.
"Honestly, scoring the goal doesn't mean as much as winning,"
Demmin
said. "And having the chance to win another
championship."
Posted on Sep 25 2000, 7:41 AM
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