Barrie Futsal Club take home CPFL silver after a thrilling final with Milltown FC. Carl H. takes Most Valuable Player honours.
After finishing last in the league last season and missing out on playoffs, the Barrie Futsal Club stepped up their recruiting and training efforts this season and it paid dividends. The team stayed in first place for the majority of the season before a pair of tight losses saw them close of the regular season in third place.
The playoffs saw the squad miss out on a bye round and faced off against the Toronto Boca Juniors in which they won by a commanding 9-3 score. They then caused one of the biggest upsets of the year when they eliminated #1 seed Toronto Xeineze in the semi-final round to set up a match against a team they had beaten in the regular season – the only club to do so – in #2 seed Milltown FC.
Despite the strong performances in the prior rounds Barrie got off to a bad start in the final as they team went down a pair of goals within the first 10 minutes of play. The defensive lapses cost them again five minutes from half when Milltown went up 3-0. Barrie were able to notch one quickly team to get back into it and some strong goalkeeping from Eduard Orellana kept the squad alive. However, another defensive error was capitalized by Milltown as they scored their fourth just before half.
BFC showed strong character and were able to mount a bit of a comeback with a pair of goals both that came off some brilliant one-two passing to cut the deficit down to 4-3. But that’s as close as they would get as the final dagger came late in the game when rising futsal star Tyler Botelho scored the goal of the year when he cracked a thunderous shot off an airborne cross court throw from goalkeeper Joey Iaccheo that rocketed into the top corner to clinch the title.
Though they were aiming for gold Barrie were pleased to see Canadian U23 national team product Carl Howarth awarded the CPFL MVP Award for a season full of outstanding performances.
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