Tobon-Villa leads Flames past Rough Riders

THE MAESTRO STRIKES
Tobon-Villa leads Flames past Rough Riders
July 4, 2004

By Dylan Butler
BigAppleSoccer.com Assistant Editor

New Rochelle, N.Y. — How important is Alex Tobon-Villa to the Westchester Flames success? On Friday the playmaker arrived late, missing the first half and the Brooklyn Knights raced out to a 2-0 lead. With Tobon-Villa in the game the Flames rallied to tie the game before eventually losing in overtime.

Tobon-Villa wasn’t tardy Sunday at City Park Stadium, much to the dismay of the rival Long Island Rough Riders. After playing a part in the Flames first goal, the Colombian threaded a perfect pass that split the Rough Riders defense on Evaud Thompson’s game-winning goal in the 68th minute to lift the Flames to a critical 2-1 victory.

“(Tobon-Villa) is the maestro there,” said Flames coach Gus Skoufis. “He’s unreal, he’s such an impact player.”

The win snaps a two-game losing streak for the Flames, which is solidly entrenched in second place in the Northern Division. Meanwhile it was a devastating loss for the Rough Riders, which had a two-game winning streak stopped and are 10 points shy of second place Harrisburg City in the Atlantic Division.

“We put ourselves in a tough situation and we got a couple of wins and we were obviously looking to build on that,” said Rough Riders captain Stephen Franzke. “We definitely felt we could have done better, maybe finished one or two of our chances and we could have had a different result.”

Baring the unlikely scenario of meeting in the postseason, this was the last game between the two Pro Soccer League rivals with the Flames dominating the series this year, going 2-0-1.

“My players are gamers. We’re shorthanded right now but we’ll do better,” Skoufis said. “That’s a big win for us.”

The Rough Riders arrived at City Park Stadium a bruised and battered bunch following an intense, physical 3-2 win at Western Mass Saturday night. The team’s fatigue showed as the Rough Riders were sluggish throughout and following several near misses, the Flames went ahead in the 36th minute on a goal by Costea Decu.

Tobon-Villa ran into space and the ball bounced to Fredy Nava, who touched it to Decu and the Romanian beat Rough Riders keeper Dan Sirota from the top right of the box for his sixth goal of the year.

“The midfield is not a problem,” Tobon-Villa said. “We have to try and finish our chances because we complicate ourselves by not finishing our chances.”

Rough Riders coach Ronan Wiseman desperately looked for the answer, bringing in Evan Bruno, Shaun Higgins, Derrick Etienne and Paul Caffrey into the game in the second half after Moussa Sy replaced veteran defender Wilmer Cabrera in the 23rd minute.

The Rough Riders (3-8-1) had several chances, including a header by Sy that landed over the crossbar in the 47th minute, but it was the Flames (6-4-2) who took the critical two-goal lead in the 67th minute on Thompson’s team-leading 10th of the year.

It was one of several times during the match the Flames used its speed with Thompson and Kwame Richardson to get behind the Rough Riders defense.

Sy responded less than a minute later, turning and beating Flames keeper Guillermo Valencia from 14 yards out for his second goal in as many nights.

The Rough Riders had two more chances in the final five minutes of the second half, but Dahir Mohammed’s header in front of goal was wide following a scramble in front and Jim Rooney freed Sy in on goal but his shot from 14 yards out was wide of the net in the 86th minute.

“I still think we could have won the game if we were a little better defensively,” Wiseman said. “We made a couple of mistakes and we still had our chances to tie it up.”

The Flames could help their rivals out with a win at home against the Pittsburgh Riverhounds Saturday at 5:30 p.m.

07/04/2004