With much anticipation the trip to the National Championships began this spring with hundreds of teams vying for a chance to earn a spot. The road traveled through every state with matches to determine the State Cup finalists. These State Champions then competed to be 1 of 4 Regional Champions. In June, six teams (the 4 Regional Champions and 2 National League Champions) were named and plans were made to head to Lancaster, Massachusetts. For the second year in a row the Crew boys were going to the National Championship Series.
The Crew started their first game of the Championships early in the morning on 22 July. The boys started aggressively against the Southern Region Champion SCSA from Charlotte, North Carolina. They displayed great ball movement and controlled the play. The only goal of the game was scored by the Crew’s Trevor Osburn. The game ended 1 – 0 thanks to the valiant effort by the defense and the goal keeping of Chase Rau.
The second day the Crew suffered an unusual and unexpected defeat losing 3 - 0 against the Eastern Region Champion Spirit United from Pennsylvania. And that is all I have to say about that.
Entering the third day against Midwest Regional Champions, Blast FC from Ohio the boys held a slim chance of still advancing to the finals. With a very tough team to beat the boys all worked hard but found themselves behind 1 - 0 with the game nearing the end. But in the 75th minute, the Crew evened the score with a goal by Taylor Mazurek and minutes later, in extra time, the game winning goal was scored by Caleb Postlewait.
Locked in a 3 way tie for 2nd place the Crew boys unfortunately did not qualify for the final champion game and their journey to be the National Champions ended one game too soon. Although disappointed, the boys have proven again to be in a small handful of the best teams in the country.
