Rochester Suffers First Home Loss

Fitzpatrick’s Lone Goal Gives Silverbacks First Ever Win vs. Rhinos

J-P Altieri & Keith Kiedrowski,
a-league.com Match Reporters
Rochester

ROCHESTER, NY, June 6, 2004 – On a warm Sunday night, Atlanta came in to Rochester after a big win Saturday against Portland. Rochester was coming off a convincing home win again Toronto on Friday night. Immediately, the impact of playing games so close together became apparent as both sides took a slow approach.

With both sides having starters on the bench either due to fitness or injury, the play was sloppy and unorganized. Neither side looked like they wanted to play the game, let alone win.

Not until the 21^st minute was there anything that looked like a decent chance. However, Rochester’s Doug Miller held on to the ball too long and had the ball taken off his foot. Twenty minutes later, Miller would again take too long and lose any chance at a shot.

Making some half-time adjustments, Rochester tried to put more pressure up top, but less than three minutes into the second half Atlanta would get the game-winning goal. The ball was being bounced around the Rochester Goal box. Craig Demmin tried to clear the ball, but Gary Brooks blocked his clearance. Brooks then placed the ball into open space where Leslie Fitzpatrick ran onto it and chipped the ball over ‘keeper Theo Zagar’s head.

Rochester continued to make substitutions, but none of them generated any more offensive chances than they had previously. Atlanta was able to sit back and protect their lead and foil any shot Rochester managed to take.

The heat, the closeness of the last matches, and perhaps other unknown factors contributed to a lackluster effort by both sides. Atlanta was able to execute their conservative game plan and counter anything that Rochester threw at them, thus allowing Atlanta their first ever victory against Rochester. With this loss, Rochester now shares first place with Montreal.