Matchday 17 of 30: Wizards vs. Fire

Pack a poncho, KC may have a little help from Mother Nature in putting out the Fire.

Juniors Contend for National Championship (Updated)

The James P. McGuire Cup, the oldest youth sports trophy in the US, has been awarded annually since 1935.

UPDATE: The Juniors fell 1-0 in the final, conceding the match winner in the 90th minute.  Heartbreaking for sure, but to be runners-up in the National Championship is a great achievement and great representation of the Wizards and their youth system.  Congratulations to Solar 89 for their first National Championship and best of luck to all of these young men in their college careers.

Having been training together for less than a month as a team, the KC Wizards U19 Juniors won the Kansas State Cup in convincing fashion.  They played one game, the championship, and they won 9-0, qualifying for the Region II Championships in Rockford, Illinois.  There they went 4-0-1, defeating the Chicago Fire Juniors in the semifinal and perennial power Scott Gallagher from St. Louis in the Championship.  Now at the US Youth Soccer National Championships in Little Rock, Arkansas, the Juniors are poised to play in Sunday’s championship match with a chance to become the 2nd ever Kansas team crowned national champions (shout out to the KC Dynamos who accomplished the feat in the 2001 U14 Girls division).

Their opponent will be Solar 89 from Dallas who return to the National Championship game for the third time in four years.  The teams are ranked #1 and #2 respectively in the U19 Boys National Soccer Rankings.  Solar boast several top freshman in college programs, none moreso than Corben Bone who was named ACC Freshman of the Year after helping Wake Forest win the National Championship last season with 5 goals and 8 assists.  The award adds to a long list of recognitions for Bone, including 2006 NSCAA National Player of the Year.  Notably, Bone missed Solar’s first two games of the tournament attending classes at Wake Forest.

While Bone was the #3 high school recruit in 2007, U20 teammate Cameron Brown was #2 on the list and chose North Carolina.  At the time of this Rise Magazine article (May 2007) Bone had scored 127 goals and 241 assists in his Solar career to Brown’s 154 goals and 276 assists.  Teammate Alex Chi, sophomore at Harvard, leads the U19 boys division with three goals scored.  Other notables include Xavier’s Ryan Engelmann, St. Louis University’s Scott Wisniewski, Kentucky’s Miles McDougal, Tulsa’s Zach Nulisch and Chris Taylor, and Navy’s Chris Schneider.  

The Juniors will certainly have their hands full, but the boys in blue have proved quite capable thus far.  Kickoff is at 10:45 am and the Plano Star provides a great preview of the match.  Check the KC Wizards Juniors blog for more info, video highlights, photos and match recaps.  Good luck, Juniors!

Captain Conrad on Camera

Photo by Jonathan Daniel

Photo by Dave Sandford

Photo by Dave Sandford

Photo by Dave Sandford

Here are a few shots of Jimmy’s full 90 in Toronto last night in the MLS All-Stars 3-2 win over West Ham (click on them to enlarge)  And here’s video of an interview with him at a training session earlier in the week.

Cheering on Conrad (Updated)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

UPDATE 2: Conrad captained the MLS All-Stars to a 3-2 victory, playing a full 90.  As is all too often the case for defenders, his two most notable moments were negative ones: his header deflection on West Ham’s second goal and a caution for a reckless foul in the 82nd minute.  

UPDATE: Listen to The Jimmy Conrad Show live from Toronto last night.

Wizards’ captain Jimmy Conrad is Kansas City’s lone representative in tonight’s MLS All-Star Game.  This is the groin’s (or is he going by the ant now?) fifth consecutive All-Star appearance*, and if the previous four were any indication, he will be in the starting lineup against West Ham tonight in Toronto (to the displeasure of this Toronto Star columnist):

• 2007: full 90 against Celtic (top left).
• 2006: first half against Chelsea (top right).
• 2005: full 90 against Fulham.
• 2004: full 90 against the East.

And as usual, even amongst the league’s other celebrities, Jimmy has been mister media man.  Check out some of the articles he’s been quoted in this week:

• KC Star: All star player, all star daddy
• Globe and Mail: Toronto fans talking about his mom, scoring off a Beckham cross, and he’s a fan of the trademark TFC streamers.
• MLSnet: Steve Davis is looking forward to Jimmy v. Craig Bellamy
• MLSnet: Training together as a team for the first time

And then there’s this Slam Sports article who quotes KC Wizard Jimmy Cooper.  Guess fans aren’t the only ones confusing him for a striker.

*Conrad was also selected to the MLS Select XI that played Real Madrid in 2005.  He played the full 90 in that match as well.