USL News Release
Wednesday, May 31, 2006
TAMPA, FL – United Soccer Leagues announced Wednesday its USL W-League and Premier Development League Teams of the Week for the sixth week of the season, honoring Mile High’s Katie Antongiovanni and Cape Cod’s Ron Murphy as the Players of the Week, respectively.
Antongiovanni dominated play in a pair of games against the visiting San Diego Gauchos. The former WUSA player started the week off Wednesday with a pair of goals in a 4-1 win and notched another brace along with an assist Sunday in a 5-1 win.
Ymara Guante took a through ball down the right side from defender RayDan Phillips and found Antongiovanni at the top of the penalty area. Antongiovanni made one move, and fired a rocket past Kelsea Scott for the opening tally.
The Edge added to their 2-1 lead in the 30th minute, again directly as a result of a long Berzins throw-in. The Iowa State sophomore took the throw near the corner flag, and placed it right on the foot of Antongiovanni, who unbelievably was running down the middle unmarked. She touched home an easy volley from the six.
Antongiovanni, a former WUSA player, opened the scoring in the 13th minute with an improbable goal. She launched a seemingly harmless shot from 40 yards that appeared to get caught up in the strong wind that was blowing the entire game. San Diego goalkeeper Kelsea Scott was able to leap at the last second and get a finger on the shot. The ball then caromed off the crossbar, bounced off Scott, and into the goal.
Fifteen minutes later, Antongiovanni found Kendra Oney with a pretty through ball. Oney broke in alone and tucked the ball into the net behind Scott to double the Mile High lead.
Antongiovanni converted a penalty in the 37th to make it 3-0.
Murphy led the Cape Cod Crusaders to a come-from-behind 3-2 win on the road with 10 men against the Rhode Island Stingrays Friday with a hat-trick, leading the team to a berth in the Lamar Hunt US Open Cup.
Murphy opened the scoring eight minutes in only to see Rhode Island’s David Badecki convert a penalty to tie in the 30th and set up James Hernandez for the lead in the 49th.
The Crusaders were then reduced to 10 men when Kareem Smith was sent off in the 73rd minute, but Murphy responded with two strikes in the final 10 minutes to lead the Crusaders to a spot in the US Open Cup.
