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02 June 2020

Flashback 2010: Ángel strikes at the death

I was hoping to do some flashbacks this year to look back 10 years to 2010, when I was in my second year as the radio play-by-play broadcaster for the Houston Dynamo. Now with sports shut down and so much of life seemingly on hold, it seems like the right time to aim for a series of retrospectives, looking back at some memorable or quirky moments from my career in sports.

June 2, 2010
First, the play. I posted the full game highlights to YouTube, but start with the big moment: Juan Pablo Ángel hitting a 35-yard free kick in off the post and the goalkeeper's back! to give the New York Red Bulls a dramatic win in their new soccer-specific stadium.

Incredible moment. As someone who grew up rooting for the MetroStars and now covers the Red Bulls semi-regularly, it's a special moment to have witnessed.

Except it was heartbreaking for my team, the guys I worked with and worked for, and part of a particularly maddening stretch of games.

A long time coming
Most soccer fans in New Jersey and New York know the long-running saga that predated the Red Bull era of the area's Major League Soccer club. The MetroStars (the New York/New Jersey was dropped after only 2 seasons) played in enormous, way-too-big-for-that-era-of-American-soccer Giants Stadium (I always enjoyed hearing, "Estadio de los Gigantes" on some broadcasts en español). 15,000 fans was a decent crowd for that era of MLS, but stick it in 70,000-seat Giants Stadium, and the atmosphere was pointless.

The atmosphere was so bad that I refused to attend my first professional soccer game in that stadium (more on my first pro game later this month), and it was clear very few MetroStars games would feel like an event until they had their own stadium. Over the years, the team unveiled plan after plan for a future stadium, often promising details in "60 to 90 days," only to have something fall through.

I interned for the club in 2002, right in the middle of all of this, and we literally had multiple staff meetings in which we heard, "Butts in seats. Butts in seats. Butts in seats - equals - stadium!"

Red Bull swoops
The MetroStars were my team at that point, having grown up there and worked there. But then Red Bull came in with an initial plan to ignore the history of the club. At the same time, my adopted hometown of Houston was welcoming a new team, one I could see in person and try to support into a success.

It was an easy transition to make, made easier still when the Dynamo won MLS Cup in their first two seasons in Houston and when I went to work for the club. So every Dynamo-Red Bulls game was a huge one for me, especially the 2008 and 2009 games when I got to go back to Giants Stadium with my new team, finally calling a game there in 2009.

Fancy new digs
But 2010 meant flying home to New Jersey to call a game in a soccer-specific stadium, of all things! No more 60-90 days, no more dead atmosphere. No more high-bouncing artificial turf. Major League Soccer in a vibrant atmosphere, on grass, 30 minutes away from my parents' house: This was something special.

Red Bull Arena had opened less than three months prior when we (the Dynamo) arrived in 2010 for a mid-week game. I was excited to see the place, even with its surprisingly bland gray exterior and some of the quirks of the broadcast level. I distinctly remember setting up my equipment on a folding table at the front of my designated booth, only to realize that when I stood behind it, I couldn't see large portions of the field's corners. Because the booth was on the suite level, it had the same dimensions as the suites, with none of the seats that fronted them. So I had blank rows of concrete in front of me, and I took advantage by hopping over the windowsill and calling the game while leaning back against the booth. With the table behind me, I don't think I looked at my notes much that evening!

Emotions running high
It was also an emotional time from the team's perspective. Our leader in so many ways, the talisman of soccer in Houston since the club's opening game in April 2006, was Brian Ching. Just a week earlier, he had been left off the United States roster for the upcoming World Cup, a decision which was just utterly shocking in our world. I had been brainstorming content we could do around Chingy and former Dynamo player Stu Holden going to the World Cup, and the thought of Ching not making the team never entered my mind.

Chingy faced the music - and the media - upon returning to Houston in one of the more painful media scrums I've ever witnessed. He answered the questions head-on and did his best to move forward despite one of the biggest disappointments of his career. And in his first game back, the Saturday before this trip to New Jersey, he came off the bench and scored "in HIS house, Robertson Stadium!" as I screamed on the radio call, as we took the lead on the expansion Philadelphia Union, only to give it up and lose, stunningly, in stoppage time.

The game
So emotions were running high, for the organization, the team, the players, and even this radio broadcaster.

Then, during the first half of the game against New York, Red Bulls fans chanted, "U.S. reject" at Brian Ching. As somebody who had spent the last four-plus years rooting for, meeting, working with, admiring, and supporting Chingy, it stung me, and I'm sure it angered every teammate in orange that night.

It was Chingy who tied that game in the 65th minute, breaking the offside trap to finish a pass from Bobby Boswell. And it felt just as emotional, at least for those of us in the building, as his goal at home against Philadelphia had. "He's not a Dynamo reject, he's their main man," was my reference on the broadcast.

Just like the Philadelphia game, however, there was one more twist of fate. The Red Bulls got this free kick DEEP into stoppage time, from WAY out, with no time left. You don't often shoot from that range. But Juan Pablo Ángel was the OG Designated Player, a big-name player who came over from Europe at age 31 and more than justified the pricetag. He scored double-digit goals in all four seasons with the Red Bulls and was, quite simply, a cut above.

I still didn't think he would shoot from there, or that he could beat the great Pat Onstad from that far out. But with the help of the goalpost and a friendly bounce, he did, and it's one of the great regular-season moments I've ever witnessed in MLS.

But it was heartbreaking, too. Every coin has two sides, right? Now you know my side from June 2, 2010.

22 May 2020

Flashback 2010: Cruz energy on display in first career start, goal

11 May 2020

Flashback 2014: Revs roll 5-0, Seattle blames me

Everybody's backup
For me, this was a one-off, a fill-in, one of the ways I managed to stay involved in MLS broadcasting while living in four cities in less than three years. A local announcer has a family commitment, gets sick, gets bumped up to a national game. Who are you going to call who can jump right in and know both teams? I was proud to be that guy.

This was a special opportunity, with Sounders announcer Ross Fletcher's wife preparing to give birth, to step onto one of the most-watched broadcasts in the league. I loved working with the Sounders' ultra-professional broadcast team, including Jackie Montgomery, Taylor Graham, and Kasey Keller. My first and only show with them had some shaky new-guy moments, things that would be ironed out if you worked two games in a row together. I even gritted my teeth and said "FC" after "Sounders" where called for. Here are some of my thoughts from the time on how things went.

Don't Shoot the Messenger
Clint Dempsey was coming back to his former home in New England, the game had teams who finished the year as two of the top five teams in MLS, not that we knew that at the time. It was supposed to be a good one. Instead, New England hit Seattle early and often, via the counter-attack, and rolled to the win.

No matter, how good or bad I was on the air, nobody in Seattle was going to get past the scoreline. At halftime, with the score already 4-0, I said, "Don't shoot the messenger, this isn't my fault!" which at least got a laugh out of Kasey! While I felt good about the broadcast and our call, I did leave the stadium that day figuring I probably wouldn't get asked back.

.@jtyardley WHAT DID YOU DO WITH OUR @SoundersFC ?!?! #justkidding #onlysortof
— Aubrey Bergauer (@aubreyyy) May 11, 2014

Yedlin's Day "Off"
One of the most notable features in the game, which saw New England exploit Seattle on the counter-attack, was Revolution winger Diego Fagundez just owning Sounders right back DeAndre Yedlin. I had watched Yedlin and met his grandparents, who raised him, during his first professional preseason with Seattle, so I felt well aware of his potential. I felt he was an outsider for the 2014 World Cup squad before this game, and I certainly felt so after his tepid performance.

But he wasn't himself in this game, and hindsight confirmed our suspicions that he was basically out there trying to avoid injury and keep his focus on the World Cup camp. Which is understandable, given how significant the World Cup is in any player's career and proved to be for Yedlin. Three months later he signed for Tottenham, and he has since played almost 100 games in the English Premier League. So he probably got the math right in taking this one easy, but it was still a strange sight to see.

Remaining Revs
From this game, it's kind of amazing to think the Revs still have Fagundez and Scott Caldwell (both Homegrown Players), Andrew Farrell, and Teal Bunbury. They later got a year and a half of the Jermaine Jones experience, they relied on Lee Nguyen for years, but they are now a completely different group under Bruce Arena. Now with a new training facility and more resources being invested, they're one of the teams I was really curious to see in 2020, so hopefully we get that chance as the year unfolds, albeit under unique circumstances.

08 May 2020

Flashback 2010: An underrated goal from the assist king himself

There won't be too much more 2010 content as part of this flashback series, but it's been 10 years since I called one of my favorite sneaky-good goals, and I never get tired of excuses to watch this thing.

I mean, who scores a goal like this? Who runs onto a through ball, slides, and THEN lobs the keeper with his first touch? I don't recall this getting any momentum for Goal of the Week, and I don't think you'll see it on an MLS retrospective of best lobs, but I just think it was a special play. I know it was against Chivas USA, and I know Zach Thornton in goal was not known for his mobility, but this goal has always stuck out in my memory banks as being unusual and skillful and awesome. So please ignore the decidedly low-quality video footage and enjoy:

As you've figured out by now, It was scored by Brad Davis, one of the great assist men in MLS history, and a guy with whom I had a history. Davis was just 20, when I interned with the MetroStars in 2002, two years older than I, and although he was a hotshot rookie on the club, he was also one of the less intimidating presences for me, a college freshman. I rooted for him from the start, from the MetroStars to the Dallas Burn to the San Jose Earthquakes and then through the move to Houston, and six years later, when our paths crossed again, he was still making my life easier.

I joined the Dynamo in 2008, managing the team web site and working in the communications department, so my job included some media relations duties. Once I began traveling with the team to every game as radio broadcaster in 2009, those duties ramped up and I was often tasked with connecting reporters and players for interviews. It's a relatively simple task, but when your approach to almost any player elicits a groan and a, "What now, Yardley?" it's not always a fun one.

Brad was one of the guys who made it easy. Oh, don't get me wrong: He'd give us crap. Seeing a staffer walking toward him after practice, he'd yell out, "WHAT!?" in mock anger or walk right past with his head turned before doubling back to hear out the request. Outside the locker rooms at Robertson Stadium, if somebody flicked your ear and then scampered through the doors, it was probably Brad.

But he also said, "Yes," and, "Just have them call me," and, "Whatever you need." Words that made my life easier, all the time. An easy choice to go to when a media outlet asked who was available and I didn't want a headache by asking the same guy twice (or three times, etc.) It helped, of course, that Brad was a starter and, eventually, a durable one.

He will always be known, of course, for assists, particularly from his left-footed dead-ball service. But there were other, subtler parts to his game (did you have Brad Davis pegged for the first elastico in MLS Cup history in 2006??), and occasionally he wound up on the scoresheet for some of those as well.

As the guy who dealt with statistics in a league with second assists, I even got to play a part, which brings me to one of my favorite Brad Davis stories.

I was in the coaches' office at Robertson Stadium on a training day, probably bugging Dominic Kinnear for content for the gameday magazine and taking good-natured ribbing from everybody in the room. Talking about some recent game, I mentioned that Brad had multiple assists in the game. Dom said, "Brad, really? He just had the one, from the free kick." And I responded, "Yeah, but he got a second assist on [so-and-so's] goal. I had to call the league to make sure he got credit for it."

"Second assist, c'mon," came the reply. "What are you doing pushing more numbers for Brad, anyway? Did he put you up to it? Who cares? What in the world has he ever done for you?" (Yes, there was an expletive in there. Probably more than one, knowing Dom.)

I just kind of shrugged and said, "Hey, it's my job," which of course Dom knew perfectly well. He always made sure we remembered that the players came first and was quick to put me in my place if my actions didn't reflect that. ... But he didn't want Brad or anybody else to worry about statistics or get a big head, either. Maybe the greatest Dynamo compliment you could give was if a player was, "honest" in his work ethic.

Fortunately for me, Brad popped his head into the coaches' office a few minutes later, and I asked him about doing an interview that I needed to get crossed off my list. He quickly said, "Yeah, sure, have him give me a call," and moved on with his day. I turned to Dom and the room and said, "You asked what has he ever done for me? That, right there. Huge help."

So maybe I have a soft spot for Brad Davis, but despite his MVP nominations and his spot on the 2014 World Cup roster and his No. 3 ranking in MLS history in assists, I still felt he was underrated at times. As a technical player, as a versatile player, as a well-rounded player. Everybody focused on the dead-ball delivery, and it was incredible. But he was much more than that, and he even changed his eating and work habits mid-career to become fitter and perform at a higher level.

This goal was far from his stereotypical skillset. If you watch the play again, he and another orange jersey make the same run, chasing a well-weighted Brian Mullan ball behind the back line, and Davis actually had to out-run (or at least not lose too much ground to) Dominic Oduro, of all people, just to get to the ball first. Fortunately, Mr. Freaky Fast himself backed off and let Brad take a run at the thing.

Then the early slide is, to me, the most underrated part of the play. It seems to accelerate Davis and allow him to beat the center back (Dario Delgado, in his only year in MLS; I had to look him up) to the ball, while also leaving Thornton in no-man's land. It was timed perfectly, allowing for the scooped finish as the ball was already bouncing up.

You just don't see this play often, and it's one I always felt got lost in the shuffle but deserves a little limelight.

17 April 2020

Flashback 2015: Launching a network with Red Bulls past, present, future

Getting ready for @NewYorkRedBulls vs @SJEarthquakes via radio at Red Bull Arena! http://t.co/uQoj5U6n6x pic.twitter.com/Ube847L0du
— Jonathan Yardley (@jtyardley) April 17, 2015

Matt, of course, has taken on the regular role ever since, while Steve Jolley - who I remembered from my 2002 internship with the MetroStars, has continued as analyst. It's a great feeling to see those guys at a game or tune in if I'm in a rental car on an MLS game night and still feel connected to the broadcast based on that first season and the odd fill-in over the years.

Quick Start
But for me, Red Bulls Radio all started with a mid-March phone call to first discuss the possibility, and less than a month later, we were on the air with Game No. 1! Here's how the highlights sounded (if you really want, the full game archive is still available!):

Pretty cool, right? Five years doesn't seem THAT long, and yet a ton has changed since then. This was the fifth game of the Ali Curtis / Jesse Marsch takeover that stunned MLS and Red Bulls fans. While we certainly knew how they were going to play - you hear Steve saying, "The Red Bulls want to pressure high, hard, and often," and I'm already saying, "From a turnover, the Red Bulls do it again." - nobody at this point in time thought New York would go on to win the Supporters' Shield.

Future Captains Everywhere
It's also funny to see different Red Bulls eras colliding. You have Dane Richards, star of the 2008 playoff run, playing with Matt Miazga, with seeming ever-presents like Luis Robles and Bradley Wright-Phillips, and then you get the MLS debut for Sean Davis at the end. That was special for me to see, as someone who has spent so much time tracking Homegrown Players. I had called the Red Bulls U-23s' NPSL championship win the previous summer, so I knew of Davis and knew then that he would be turning pro after his senior campaign at Duke. I can remember Ali Curtis saying Davis could one day be "the face of the franchise," and Wright-Phillips sharing similar thoughts, and now, five years later, he is the Red Bulls captain.

I wasn't rusty, persay, because I had called the Red Bulls twice already for MSG that spring. But I don't think I had done soccer on the radio in two years, not regularly since 2011, so there were a few moments where the game moved fast for me. On the first goal, I gave Sacha Kljestan credit for forcing the turnover when it was clearly Felipe (as Steve pointed out in his analysis), which is embarrassing. They don't exactly look alike or anything!

Some Wondo Love
If you were watching, you saw all-time MLS leading scorer Chris Wondolowski on the Earthquakes bench to start the game, and he did play in the second half, but my favorite Wondo fact of the game didn't have to do with Chris. Steve Wondolowski, who played with Chris in Houston when I was there, went with my audio for at least some of the game and gave me, a life-long Oakland A's fan (long story for another time), quite a post-game compliment!

@jtyardley Great call tonight! Can't wait to hear you calling our A's games when Korach retires.
— Stephen Wondolowski (@sjwondolowski) April 18, 2015

How Far Kljestan's Come
Lastly, I thought it was appropriate, somehow, that there were a couple faces in these highlights who also showed up in the Houston-Chivas USA game I had called five years prior. Firstly, Dominic Kinnear had moved back home to coach the Earthquakes, and I remember catching up with him before the game.

But one of the centerpieces in this performance, Kljestan, had a cameo in the 2010 game as the player Lovel Palmer turned past before scoring from distance. Consider Kljestan's five years in between: getting married, moving to Europe and playing 180 games for Anderlecht, including Champions League contests, falling out of favor with the US national team, and then transferring back to MLS with the Red Bulls. He hadn't lived as many places as I had in those five years (4), but he had been busy!

Last MLS goal for @SachaKljestan? April 24, 2010 for Chivas USA against ... wait for it ... San Jose. 4 years, 51 weeks ago.
— Jonathan Yardley (@jtyardley) April 18, 2015

Kljestan has had an eventful five years since, as well, winning the Supporters' Shield, reaching the rare 20-assst milestone, captaining the Red Bulls, being traded to Orlando, and now winding up with the LA Galaxy. Still getting used to that!

But it just goes to show, a lot can happen in five years, and I'm very glad I was able to inaugurate the Red Bulls' English-language radio presence back in 2015.

Flashback 2010: Palmer's ridiculous rip and Cameron's "unique" celebration

So I thought I would start this series of flashbacks with one of my favorite goal calls from early in my radio days, one that survived on my demo reel for several years, even after I had transitioned to mostly TV work. Houston brought in a Jamaican midfielder during preseason named Lovel Palmer, he scored a great long-range goal in preseason, and the Dynamo pulled the trigger on a transfer, paying his club Harbour View an (of course undisclosed fee) to sign Palmer.

Lovel Palmer! That's how you do it!
His first Houston start came 10 years ago today – April 17, 2010 – in the fourth game of the season, and when he pulled the trigger from about 35 yards away in the first half, firing a shot past Zach Thornton to make it a 2-0 game, I exploded:

"Into the middle to Palmer, with a man on him. Nice turn to get around Kljestan. Palmer, gonna shoot … fires! Finds the net! What a goal! Lovel Palmer! That's how you do it! His first start, his first Dynamo goal, and boy is he pumped!"

It's one I could watch all day, because of the goal itself and because of what I knew it meant to Lovel, an emotional player who became a fan favorite with every club he represented in his career. (As an aside, I ultimately learned to pronounce his name as LUH-VELL, with an accent on both syllables, rather than the luh-VELL I used here.)

So I went back to watch and enjoy the highlights:

and I found a lot more than just Lovel's outstanding finish.

Geoff Cameron, Easter Bunny?
Geoff Cameron scored the opening goal on a feed from roommate and constant odd-couple-partner Corey Ashe, then launched into a …bunny-hop celebration? What the heck was that? Was it an Easter thing? No, this was almost 2 weeks after Easter.

I really couldn't remember, so I had to Google it, and it started to come back to me. Geoff, a Best XI selection as a center back in 2009 but returning to the Houston midfield in 2010, had done a commercial for Volkswagen involving various elaborate goal celebrations, and his was: the bunny hop. Somehow he decided to bust it out in a game (he had also used it in the 2009 Dynamo Charities Cup), and I seem to remember all of us busting out laughing at the same time.

(As an aside, look at how wide-eyed Geoff is for this commercial shoot! I don't think he's acting when he's looking around on that pedestal all uncomfortable. And who came up with this campaign, anyway? Disaster or genius?)

Dom Oduro's "shoes are hot!"
Cameron did keep the shoes on for this celebration, which cannot be said for the day's third goalscorer, Dominic Oduro. After tapping a Brad Davis feed into an empty net from about 4 yards away, Oduro "play[ed] hot-potato with his cleat," a celebration I certainly had never seen before. When asked about it later, Oduro was quoted as saying, "My shoes are hot. It's going to be hot from now on. It's a goal, and the shoes are hot."

So our communications office definitely had a "shoes are hot!" saying whenever Oduro's name came up from then on. Of course, he proceeded to score 1 goal in his next 17 games …

A Moonlight Graham moment
This highlight reel closes with the debut of 18-year-old Francisco Navas Cobo, the Dynamo's second Homegrown Player and first to appear in a game. This was a big deal for the club at the time, trying to prove to anyone and everyone that the Houston academy could and would provide opportunities no other local club could.

Of course, if you've read this far, you probably know that the Houston academy is considered one of the least successful in MLS, and Navas Cobo never made another MLS appearance, one more cautionary tale of American soccer: We're all looking for the next big thing, but the success rate is low.

End of an era
My lasting memory of this game is just bliss: a 3-0 win for the team that employed me, some great goals and entertaining celebrations to call, and a couple of debuts to boot. But in some ways, it was the last hurrah for the great Houston(/San Jose) dynasty. The Earthquakes were MLS Cup champions in 2001 and 2003, Supporters' Shield winners in 2005, then moved to Houston and won MLS Cup titles in 2006 and 2007, won the West regular season title in 2008, and tied for the West regular season title in 2009. This was a juggernaut, pushed off course by postseason misfortunes in 2008 and 2009, but still feared around the league.

The roster on April 17 had six players who had been in San Jose, with two other starters injured. Yet one week later, on a rainy night in Chicago, Cameron ruptured his PCL, and the jig was up. Having already lost Ricardo Clark and Stuart Holden in the offseason, Houston never recovered in 2010. The club finally had to go younger, and so Brian Mullan was traded closer to home during 2010, and Pat Onstad, Richard Mulrooney, Ryan Cochrane, and Craig Waibel all moved on after that season, with Eddie Robinson limping through one more campaign in 2011.

The runs to MLS Cup finals in 2011 and 2012 and the Eastern Conference final in 2013 looked very different, with only a few names (Kinnear, Ching, Davis, Clark) who had celebrated titles in San Jose colors. So, in many ways, April 17, 2010 was one final day of belief in the promise of that era. And boy, were we pumped!

12 February 2008

Archives: Bowling practice leaves me sore

Originally published in Humble Observer
February 12, 2008

By JONATHAN YARDLEY

I felt really sore last week, and it was not from celebrating my Giants’ Super Bowl victory or from my Sunday-league soccer game.

No, I was feeling the burn because of bowling. Real bowling, that is, not the Wii version.
Observer sports reporter Joe Musarra and I cover high school sports year round, but rarely do we get to participate, except to return an errant volleyball or basketball while taking pictures from the sidelines.

Bowling, however, is a sport for every man or woman, so we went to practice one afternoon with the Humble high school bowling team. And we were still feeling it a week later.

Although I was in a bowling league as a kid and once received a bowling ball for Christmas, I had never thought of bowling as an endurance sport.

Practicing with Humble seniors Chris Johnson and Steven Pickel, however, made believers out of us.

Things started innocently enough. Humble coach Don Seagraves, coaching his last year after 28 years as a bowling coach, welcomed us and set us up with Pickel and Johnson on adjacent lanes.

During a practice round, Johnson (Humble’s homecoming king back in October) tried to show me the secret to putting spin on the ball. But my attempts generally went straight into the gutter, so my bowling throws remained as straight as my baseball pitches.

After the practice game, we paired up into teams based on our practice scores. I came to play in the opening game, racking up a 155 as Johnson and I crushed Pickel and Musarra.

My ability to pick up spares — my only demonstrable bowling skill — seemed to desert me toward the end of the second game, however, and I finished with a 122 as Johnson and I went down to defeat.

We settled the series with a decisive third game, but the ball suddenly seemed twice as heavy in my hands. I tried too hard to compensate for my decreasing strength and wound up pulling the ball left or leaving it right.

Before I knew it, we were in the 10th frame, and I had no chance at even reaching 100. I finished with an embarrassing 84, and Pickel and Musarra easily claimed the win.

For the record, I beat Joe on total pinfall from the three games that counted, 271-268, but both Humble guys were in the 200s on most individual games.

Our lasting memory of the afternoon, however, will be the lingering pain and soreness in our forearms, hands and backs. All because we bowled four games in less than an hour.

It may not be football, baseball, basketball or track, but bowling is an endurance contest nonetheless.

13 November 2007

Archives - Playing for his twin and his team, Joe Connell inspires Splendora's victory

Originally published in East Montgomery Observer
November 13, 2007

By JONATHAN YARDLEY

With his twin brother on his mind, Splendora senior Joe Connell played with twice the heart in helping Splendora to a 22-15 win over Coldspring and a second consecutive District 22-3A title last Friday at Wildcat Stadium.

Before the game, Joe Connell shared an emotional pregame Senior Night ceremony with his parents and twin brother, Josh, who is unable to play after an offseason accident.

On his second carry of the game, Joe Connell had the wind knocked out of him, and he did not return until midway through the second quarter. But when crunch time arrived in the fourth quarter, Joe Connell's inspiration was close at hand.

"I was thinking somebody's coming behind me and pushing me," Joe Connell said of his hard-nosed running. "That's the way my brother used to run the ball. My brother, I did that for him."

Splendora trailed 15-14 with 9:06 remaining, but Joe Connell helped the Wildcats bash downfield on a nine-play journey to re-take the lead. Joe Connell carried on five of the nine plays, including a 16-yard touchdown run on which he broke two tackles to score with 4:27 left.

When Splendora went for two to restore a one-touchdown lead, Joe Connell was the only place to go, and he powered his way across the goal line with help from his teammates.

"I couldn't have done it without [Josh Ables] lead blocking," Joe Connell said. "The tackles, [Mike] Whelihan and [Josh] Penton, played their butts off."

Four minutes later, with Coldspring driving in an attempt to tie the game or go ahead, Joe Connell was in the game at linebacker and in the right place at the right time to scoop up a fumble and seal the victory.

Afterward, as he reflected on the team's comeback from an early 7-0 deficit, Joe Connell could have been reflecting on his, and the team's, entire season.

"We knew we had to make an adjustment and come back," he said. "Heart brought us through that game."

02 May 2007

Archives - Seeing is believing: Atascocita’s Dziedzic a true ace

Jonathan Dziedzic, 2007
Photo by Jonathan Yardley

from the Observer Newspaper Group
original publication date - May 2, 2007

By JONATHAN YARDLEY
Sports Reporter

The questions arose at every high-school baseball game I went to this spring. In every press box I sat in, with most coaches I talked to, with every parent sitting behind home plate with scorebook in hand.

At first, I was the one asking the questions. After a few games here and there, I wound up answering it and weighing in with my opinion.

Around Humble ISD ballparks this year, I kept hearing, “Have you seen this kid, this lefty? Is he for real? What’s he got? He’s not that big, right? Does he throw hard?”

It’s the same chatter we hear about prospects at all levels. We asked the same questions when scouting for Little League tournaments. We asked the same thing of our coaches when sizing up other teams in high school. We settled the question by watching endless videotape of opponents in college. But for all the questions we ask, we usually need to see it ourselves to believe it.

Having seen Atascocita’s Jonathan Dziedzic pitch a couple times, I can vouch that he is for real. He’s not an overpowering, dominant prospect likely to go in the first round of the Major League Baseball draft. But he is a legit high school ace with Division I potential, and he is the biggest reason the Eagles had such an outstanding season in District 21-5A. Oh, by the way, he’s a sophomore.

Not to take away from Atascocita’s defense and baserunning (which has been terrific) or Eric Matthews and his coaching staff (who do an excellent job of keeping their kids grounded), but Atascocita would not have finished the season in a tie for second place without Dziedzic.

All season, he has kept district opponents wondering which is harder: pronouncing his last name or facing him at the plate. It’s pronounced Jezzic, by the way, rhyming with Andre the Giant’s lovable “Princess Bride” character Fezzik. Took me three games to figure that out.

Having inevitably failed to pronounce the name on the scorecard and having heard the rumors of this pitcher’s dominance, opposing coaches probably expect to see a hefty 6-footer strolling out to the mound, sure of his superiority. Instead, they get Dziedzic.

Standing no more than 5-foot-10, with dark hair and braces, Dziedzic is nowhere near imposing. Off the field, he is shy with strangers (at least with those interviewing him for the first time) but quick to break the tension with a laugh.

On the mound is another story. Dziedzic is as quietly intense as they come, focused only on his catcher’s glove each time he goes into his windup. He remained pretty unflappable in the tense 3-2 win over Baytown Sterling April 20, although he admitted to being nervous on a fly ball caught at the warning track. Watching closely, you might notice the occasional fist pump or spike of adrenalin, but he stays on an even keel most of the game.

Fans, coaches, opposing players, parents, scouts and even journalists inevitably discuss pitchers in terms of stuff. A fastball in the low 80s with life, topping out at 83. Big-breaking curve around 70 mph probably on a 1-to-8 tilt (those numbers reference a pitch’s break by hours on a clock, for those not in the know). Very occasional change in the low 70s. Excellent command. Good makeup.

Those are the basics of the scouting report on Dziedzic. His fastball is not overpowering, even on the high-school level – starters from Baytown Sterling and Kingwood, among others, throw harder. But the potential is there – with growth in size and arm strength from the 15-year-old – to add anywhere from 3-7 miles per hour in the next three years, which would make anyone – especially a lefthander – a collegiate prospect.

The curveball is the out pitch, a big bender that can start out of the strike zone and freeze a hitter when it drops into the zone or tantalize hitters into swinging at a pitch that suddenly disappears. Baytown Lee hitters struck out five times on curveballs in the dirt last Friday.

Command is the most important factor – Dziedzic averages less than two walks per seven innings pitched – and appears advanced for his age. Few pitchers can throw two pitches for strikes and command them within the strike zone. Dziedzic is well ahead of the curve on that one.

Perhaps most overlooked, however, is the delivery. Dziedzic has an average leg kick – he does not yet hold runners on well, a minus for a lefthander – but “hides the ball” well, in baseball parlance. Hitters find it difficult to pick up the baseball, because he keeps the ball in his glove until late in the wind-up, when he drops his arm behind his left hip, screening the batter from the ball. His glove hand and follow-through serve as added distractions for hitters trying to track the baseball. Hiding the ball can be taught at most levels and is not the most important skill by any means, but it backs up Dziedzic’s stuff, command and demeanor, thereby placing him at the forefront of pitchers in a district that includes at least two Division I signees already.

With district play completed, Dziedzic has answered all the questions. He’s not that big. He doesn’t throw that hard. He’s not overpowering. He’s not the second coming of Sandy Koufax. He’s not singularly responsible for Atascocita’s playoff result this weekend.

But he is legit, and area baseball fans have two more years to come up with new questions to answer about Jonathan Dziedzic. By next year, when college and professional scouts will be making their way out Will Clayton Parkway to see him pitch, everyone will know how to pronounce his name.

19 July 2002

2002: Open Cup road trip

I wrote this article as an intern in the MetroStars communications department in 2002.

The airport employee was confused: “Now wait, what’s the difference between the brown shirts and the red shirts? I couldn’t figure out who was who.”

Such is the fate of the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup — colorful, but not well known.

The MetroStars flew to Norfolk Tuesday for that night’s Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup Third Round game in Virginia Beach against the Hampton Roads Mariners of the A-League. Hampton Roads is in last place in the A-League’s Southeast Division and has won just four games all year. The team almost folded earlier in the season and was without a healthy goalkeeper due to injuries and eligibility issues. Yet it was Hampton Roads that had the better of play in the first half and only a somewhat lucky Rodrigo Faria goal with 14 minutes remaining allowed the MetroStars to escape with the win before an announced crowd of 828. That’s right, eight hundred people showed up to watch their team play its best soccer of the year.

Such is the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup—surprising and intriguing, but not well followed.

Single elimination open tournaments have a rich history in soccer throughout the world, highlighted by England’s F.A. Cup, the second most prestigious title in the land. All clubs, professional and amateur, can compete in the tournament, making for a few rare occasions where a small-time team can knock off a big gun. Something about a one-game, winner-take-all atmosphere lifts the minnows to new heights and many a first division side has fallen at the hands of lower division teams.

The U.S. Open Cup, however, has not caught on in the United States. While the rest of the crowds in this week’s first round were impressive for an Open Cup match, with a sellout in Seattle and upwards of 4,000 attending most of the games, they still pale in comparison even to a weekend MLS game.

For minor league teams, however, they are a chance at the big time, and MLS teams almost always find the going tougher than expected.

The MetroStars were a quiet bunch arriving at Kean University on Tuesday morning. A 7:00 A.M. departure time took care of that. After riding to the airport, the players ducked their way into a cramped airplane for the short flight to Norfolk.

To set the record straight for the airport employee, the team polo shirts did signify a person’s role in the team by color--players were in tan, coaches and staff in bright red, head coach Octavio Zambrano in white, and one rookie P.R. representative in gray.

The players loosened up a bit after waking up from the flight, and Tim Howard took over the comedy routine while strolling through the airport terminal, making fun of everything from Big Mama’s walk to Brad Davis’ youth.

A charter bus was waiting to take the team to the hotel, where the players dispersed for the afternoon to catch up on sleep and hang out in the hotel. Steve Jolley, however, had family matters to attend to as a Virginia Beach native. With family comes responsibility, and Steve did his best, asking team travel manager Orlando Conguta for as many tickets as possible.

The coaches did not spend the entire time resting, however; assistant coach Merlin Villagomez was finding assistance to track down any kind of a scouting report on Hampton Roads and also checking on the midweek plans of Saturday’s league opponent, the New England Revolution.

At 3:30, four hours before gametime, the team assembled in the hotel restaurant for the pregame meal; then picked up their equipment from the bus and returned to their rooms before returning at 5:45 for the trip to the stadium.

The Virginia Beach Sportsplex was built primarily for soccer, with two-tiered stands close to the field on one sideline and a small grass hill on the far sideline. While the personnel and staff were as welcoming as could be, the field was another matter. There were a ton of bare patches on the field, making for conditions that weren’t exactly ideal, but that’s what the homefield advantage is for.

The Mariners may not have had the crowd advantage at home, but they played like the home team in the first half, enjoying more possession and generating more chances than their more-heralded opponents.

“The game was hard to play,” Faria said. “They had a lot of motivation to play against us, for sure, and the field was terrible — we didn’t play well in the first half.”

Former Kansas City Wizards striker Gary Glasgow was one of many thorns in the MetroStars’ side, teaming well with South African midfielder Jerome McCarthy. The pair teamed up for the best offensive move of the game, but Tim Howard made the save to keep the match scoreless into halftime.

The biggest Mariners star of the day was keeper Joe Larson, who wasn’t even supposed to be playing. Hampton Roads had been using Wizards backup Taly Goode to replace Larson, sidelined with a quad strain. Goode’s status with the Wizards, however, precluded him from competing in the same tournament with a different team. So the Mariners worked out a loan agreement for D.C. backup Mike McGinty, since United failed to qualify for the Open Cup. But McGinty’s paperwork wasn’t filled out on time, leaving Larson to play through the pain. Did he ever!

Larson made high-caliber saves on a Faria header, a Mike Petke header, and a Ross Paule chance in the box to keep the match scoreless in the second half. It looked like Larson had done it again in the 76th minute, but Faria got to his own rebound for the game’s only goal.

The MetroStars held on through a physical and at times frantic finish for the win.

The few fans that were there were certainly devoted, crowding the field after the game for autographs and words with their heroes. Any little gesture was appreciated, such as Williams tossing his shinguards to a fan on the way to the locker room. The locker room facilities were once again pretty good for an A-League side, but it took some asking to get reasonable amounts of soap for postgame showers.

The players knew that they hadn’t played their best, but a win is a win is a win, so they enjoyed their postgame meal and got to bed early, because they were to meet the bus at 4:45 the next morning to fly back to Newark.

“They played well today, they for sure had a lot of motivation to play against us,” Faria said. “But we have to move forward and be focused for Saturday now.”

The measure of a team is without a doubt the marathon of the league season, but there’s something to prove in one-game showdowns as well and perhaps in the years ahead the Open Cup will become an integral part of the American soccer scene.

Or maybe 4,000 fans will continue to be considered an excellent crowd for an Open Cup mtach.

Either way, the tournament will remain true to its roots as a place of color, surprise, and the rare occasion for an unheralded side to shock a giant.

The shock may only last 76 minutes, like it did for the MetroStars, or 86 minutes for the Wizards, but it may last a year, the way it will for the Chicago Fire. The A-League’s Milwaukee Rampage beat two-time champion Chicago 1-0 Wednesday night on a goal set up by John Wolyniec, who dressed last Saturday against the MetroStars as a member of that same Chicago Fire.

Chicago probably should’ve taken a page from Kansas City and called Wolyniec in for their match. Then again, maybe Milwaukee would’ve pulled it off anyway.

Such is the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup—anything can happen, and it usually does.