[Frank Cunha]

Story last updated at 9:55 a.m. Monday, September 15, 2003


Battery wins East crown, hosts title match Saturday

BATTERY 1, RHINOS 0

BY DAVID CARAVIELLO
Of The Post and Courier Staff
When it ended, the crowd was roaring so loudly that the referee's whistle could barely be heard. Battery players rushed onto the field and gathered into a circle in front of their own goal, where they hopped up and down in celebration. Forward Paul Conway doused spectators with champagne as he headed for the locker room.

Team owner Tony Bakker, who founded the franchise a decade ago, stood off to one side and tried to take it all in.

"We did it," he said, his eyes gleaming.

After years of playoff disappointment, only 90 minutes of soccer now separate the Battery from a first A-League championship. Josh Henderson's unassisted goal gave Charleston a 1-0 victory over Rochester Sunday in the second game of the Eastern Conference final, and a win in the two-leg, aggregate-score series by the same score. The teams had played to a scoreless draw Friday in Rochester, N.Y.

Charleston will host the A-League championship Saturday at 7 p.m. against Minnesota, which beat Seattle 2-0 in a Western Conference final that also ended Sunday. Charleston beat Minnesota 3-0 in its regular-season finale Aug. 30.

But the Battery saw Rochester as its biggest playoff hurdle. The Rhinos have won three A-League titles, more than any other team, and hadn't lost to the Battery in two years.

"We're there," Battery coach Chris Ramsey said. "A final is a final, and you have to go in and give your all like we did tonight. Really, this is the final here. (Rochester) is the team to beat. We'll get prepared for the final the same way we did this week, and hopefully we'll go out and play properly and take the championship home."

"We're one game away," added Conway, a former A-League MVP who has been in Charleston longer than any other player. "To go through Rochester to get to the final, I think that makes it extra special. They've got three championships, and they're the benchmarks of the league as long as I've been in it."

The lone goal came in the 41st minute, near the end of a tense, cautious first half that saw both teams trying to avoid the one big mistake that could win it for the teams trying to avoid the one big mistake that could win it for the other side. Charleston defender Terry Phelan served the ball into the box, where the Rhinos took control. It came to rest between goalkeeper Billy Andracki and defender Carlos Mendes, who had his back to the field.

Before Rochester could clear it, Henderson intervened. The Charleston forward slipped between the two Rhinos players and got just enough of his foot on the ball to slide it over the goal line.

"(Mendes) was tying to hold me off the keeper," said Henderson, whose 13 goals lead the Battery this season. "They didn't know who was going to get it.

"He was trying to shove me off, and I was able to just slide around him and get the outside of my foot on it. Sometimes those go in, sometimes they don't. It was going to take a lucky break to beat them. We got it, and it felt good."

Before Henderson's goal, Rochester had been the clear aggressor. The Rhinos nearly jumped ahead in the 21st minute, when Battery goalkeeper Dusty Hudock had to deflect a hard shot by Kirk Wilson over the crossbar. Six minutes later, Rhinos defender Bill Sedgewick hammered a shot from inside the 18-yard box that bounced off the near post.

"I think we were possessing the ball well. We were creating opportunities at the beginning," Rochester coach Pat Ercoli said. "I think we put a lot of energy into the first half. If one of those had gone in, I think that would have made it a different game."

Henderson's goal changed the tone of the match. Charleston attacked over and over in the second half, nearly adding to the lead in the 66th minute when Andracki deflected a Henderson header over the crossbar. Another chance came six minutes later, when Steve Klein came though the middle and missed an open shot wide.

"I think it forced them to open up a little bit," Henderson said of the Battery goal. "They're so good defensively, so organized. They knock the ball around the back so well, it's tough to break them down 0-0. If we got that first goal, we thought it would open up and we'd get more chances."

The biggest challenge to Charleston's slim lead came in the final minutes, when Rochester made one last push. Hudock made five saves in the game, four of them in the second half. The game's punishing nature became evident with four minutes left, when Rochester's Scott Schweitzer had to sit down and stretch to work out leg cramps.

"They were exhausting, probably more mentally than physically," Battery defender Mark Watson said of the final minutes. "Rochester is a very good team. They've set the standard in this league the last six or seven years. From my point of view, if you win the championship, you want to go through them. If you do beat them along the way, you're very deserving."

The Blackbaud Stadium crowd of 2,571 cheered each time Charleston cleared the ball in stoppage time. Players on the Battery bench hopped up and down nervously. The final whistle brought both exuberance and relief for a franchise that has always brimmed with promise, but had little other than early playoff exits to show for it.

"I thought anything less would be a disappointment. We had the talent," said Henderson, who played last year for a Richmond team that lost to Milwaukee in the championship game.

"They've been there close every single year, and I thought this would be our year. That's the reason I came. I think that's the reason (midfielder) Ted Chronopoulos came. That's the reason guys like Paul (Conway) and Dusty (Hudock) have been here every year. They think this is the place to be, and it is. And right now, it feels good."