In the blink of an eye, Lionsbridge FC’s hopes of a national championship vanished.
After a season including the first four playoff victories in a club history that dates to 2018, Lionsbridge FC flew cross-country and fell 2-1 to Ballard FC in Saturday night’s USL League Two title match near Seattle in Tukwila, Washington.
Just when it appeared the match would go to extra time, Ballard’s Peter Kingston laced a free kick that teammate Cameron Martin headed past Lions keeper Tyler Hogan for the tiebreaking goal in stoppage time. That sent most in the sellout crowd of 3,416 into a frenzy, and flares went off near the sidelines despite the rain.
Hogan took a pass on the subsequent kickoff and drilled the ball downfield, but Ballard knocked it away to prompt the referee’s final whistle.
It was a stunning ending after the brief euphoria Josh Baker brought Lionsbridge by scoring the tying goal short-handed in the 80th minute of a game that Ballard often controlled. Lionsbridge’s unbeaten streak ended at 10 matches.
Stas Korzeniowski, a second-team NCAA All-American last season for the Penn Quakers, put the hosts on top in the 24th minute, stealing the ball and knocking it into the net after receiving a yellow card in the 19th.
But the Lions (13-3-4) incurred numerous yellow cards in their only road match of a playoff bracket that began with 32 of the nation’s 122 teams in the top level of American amateur soccer.
Lions center back Adam Kirkwood got a yellow card in the 27th minute for physical play and another in the 37th, ostensibly for an unsportsmanlike comment toward an official. That brought out a red card and forced the Lions to play a man short.
Lionsbridge coach Chris Whalley got a yellow card shortly after Kirkwood’s ejection, and David Materazzi got one after a hard foul.
A few dozen Lionsbridge fans were in the crowd at Starfire Sports Stadium, one of the epicenters of Pacific Northwest soccer; it is the training base for the Seattle Sounders of Major League Soccer and OL Reign of the National Women’s Soccer League.
But thousands of often-red-clad Ballard fans were on hand for the “Battle of the Bridges” at a venue bigger than their club’s usual home field, providing an intense atmosphere even beyond what the Lions often have at their home TowneBank Stadium.
The Lionsbridge fans who gathered at Coastal Fermentory in downtown Newport News for a viewing party couldn’t have liked what they saw early.
From the start, Ballard (15-1-1), a second-year club, had more dangerous chances. Hogan and his teammates often needed to defend corner kicks.
Early in the second half, Ballard threatened more. But just before the Lions might have gotten desperate, Baker collected a long throw-in and scored from the top of the 18-yard box — similar to how the Englishman from High Point University netted the tying goal in the second half in a home semifinal against The Villages FC.
Lionsbridge advanced in a 4-3 penalty-kick shootout that night and seemed destined for extra time and, perhaps, another series of one-on-one confrontations. Those odds got even better when Korzeniowski was ejected in the 83rd minute after receiving his second yellow card, leaving the teams even at 10 against 10.
But two Ballard players who grew up near Seattle spoiled the Lions’ plans. Kingston, who plays for Seattle University, drove a ball that Martin, who has played 37 games for the Michigan Wolverines, flicked into the net. Soon, the Lions accepted their second-place prize as their supporters gave them a standing ovation.
