For Toronto who defeated two New York teams, the Lady Rough Riders and the Magic, on the road it was great.  For the Fury two games in Massachusetts it was not so good as they lost to both Springfield and Boston.

The Toronto Inferno started the weekend by defeating  the Long Island Lady Riders 1-0 on Saturday night, spoiling Long Island’s home debut in front of 2,188 fans gathered at North Hempstead Town Park.

The Lady Riders came out sluggish and Toronto quickly capitalized, as Tina Blaskovic chipped home a pass from Candace Chapman from 10 yards out to score the only goal of the match.

With time winding down, the Lady Riders pushed the ball over the top of the Toronto defense several times, but ultimately could not capitalize.

"Toronto started at a fast pace and played great high pressure defense. Their defense and midfield had very little time on the ball," said Lady Riders head coach Phil Schools. "The last quarter of the game we had a late surge on goal but they had some great last second defense and goalkeeping and unfortunately we had some weak finishing."

The win Friday was followed up off with a 3-1 win on Sunday over the New York Magic.  The three goal win gave the Inferno five points on the night under the USL points system and nine on the weekend from their opening two games.

FURY Frustrated

For the Ottawa Fury the weekend was, to say the least an exercise in frustration as they suffered an overtime loss to Springfield in a game they had for the most part dominated and then lost to Boston in a game in which they barely showed.

You had to see it to believe it. Maybe that was the problem for Ottawa goalkeeper Tania Singfeld as she tried to keep an eye on Melissa McBean's 45-yard bomb in the 102nd minute of play.

After two challenges towards goal by both Rachel LeDuc (Longmeadow, MA) and Brooke Bartlett (Clifton Park, NY) were cleared away by the Fury defense, the New Britain, CT native rallied in the loose ball and sent in her shot from the center of the field, 45 yards out. Singfeld looked like she had a beat on the ball but it was far from the truth. The truth stung like a old schoolmaster's reprimand as the ball bounced into the goal past the helpless keeper.

A wild end to a night - to say the least - but in hindsight was not too far from the imagination as the game itself had many wild moments. Harshly scorned by the home crowd, the officiating crew had to filter through a physical affair that saw LeDuc get yellow carded in the 97th minute. The surprise was not the yellow card but that it took that long to see one. Ottawa implemented a sly, push-and-shove type of defense that was hard to pin down in the referee's eyes - and which ignited the ire of the Springfield team to no end (14 fouls).

From the start, the Fury frustrated the Sirens as they held possession and forced Springfield into turnover after turnover in the first half. Holding the run of play, Ottawa outshot Springfield by a 8-2 margin but most of the shots were from outside the penalty area, giving goalkeeper Julie Podhrasky (Dallas, TX) enough time and space to corral them in. On three separate occasions, though, headers by captain Hege Lauvik (Bergen, Norway), McBean and Finnish international Tiina Saario just went wide to keep the team's hopes high.

The Fury opened the scoring in the 51st minute as Jennifer Biondi sent in a cross from the right flank to the far post. Erica Bowie neatly headed in the ball inside the far post and it looked like Ottawa was in control. However, the goal ignited the Sirens offense and it did not take much time for Springfield to tie the game.

Fourteen minutes later, Lauvik took in an errant clearance on the left flank. The ex-University of Hartford Hawk blasted her shot towards net and in an eerie foreshadowing of things to come, Singfeld could not control the high shot and the ball just dropped over the line with LeDuc waiting on the doorstep for a rebound.

The periodic substitutions of Susie Woodson (Enfield, CT), Martha Conover (Liverpool, NY) and Sarah Cook (Cincinnati, OH) into the match gave Springfield enough of a jump start late in the game to completely control the run of play. Ottawa did not register another shot on net for the rest of the game after Bowie's goal.

On Sunday Boston Renegades stuffed the Ottawa Fury 2-0 at Bowditch Stadium in front of 1,010 roaring fans. It was the Renegades first win of the season, improving their record to 1-1-1.

The Renegades dominated possession the entire game but struggled to capitalize on goal-scoring opportunities out shooting the Fury 14-2. In the first 30 minutes the Renegades shelled the Fury with 8 shots on goal, but Fury goalkeeper Tinia Singfield came up with numerous acrobatic saves that kept her team in the match.

In the 30 minute, captain Rebekah Splaine beat a Fury off-sides trap and got in on a one-on-one with Singfield. Her outside of the foot shot deflected off of the post but Kara Brown pounced on the rebound. Brown slotted the ball to an on-running Minna Mustoneon who slammed home the Renegades first goal of the season.

"We have had trouble scoring in our last three games," said coach Peter Bradley. "But we have great goal-scorers and I knew once we got our first goal the pressure would be off."

In the second half, the Renegades continued to keep the ball in the Fury’s half of the field. Renegades midfielder Mary-Beth Bowie set the tempo in the game with her precise passing. Bowie may have had extra motivation on the day considering she was playing against her sister, Erica Bowie, a forward for the Fury.

"My sister and I get along great," said Mary-Beth. "Still, it was a bit of extra motivation to play against her."

The Renegades continued pressure led to their inevitable second goal. In the 48^th minute, Kara Brown made a splicing run down the left-hand side, leaving three defenders in her wake. Brown drove the ball across the face of the goal and Asta Helgadottir pushed the ball past Singfield for goal number two.

The Renegades forced Singfield into more goal-stopping saves, but were unable to beat her on a third occasion. The match ended 2-0 with the Renegades taking away four points in W-1 League play.

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