Wisconsin Soccer Central

The Croatian Eagles' spring season ended the same way it started: With a two-goal loss to fellow Croatian club RWB Adria.

While Sunday morning's semifinal match at the U.S. Adult Soccer Association Region II Amateur Cup was drastically different than the teams' meeting in a regional Open Cup opener on a brisk, breezy day back in April, the results were frustrating bookends to the season for the Franklin club.

The 10-man Eagles got an equalizer from Ross Van Osdol (UW-Milwaukee) late in the first half of extra time, but couldn't find another one against the Illinois side in the second 15-minute period and ended up losing 3-1 in Overland Park, Kan.

"It was a tough one," Croatians manager Alex Toth said. "It was tough playing down a guy for a good portion of the game and going to overtime.

"This whole year whole has been interesting. But we'll only get better. I was proud of the way they played."

The Eagles, last year's USASA National Open Cup champions, were reduced to 10 men just after the half hour mark when Andrew Wiedabach (Mequon Homestead/UW-Milwaukee) was sent off. Wiedabach had been cautioned about five minutes earlier for a heavy challenge.

"There was a tussle in the midfield," Toth said of the sequence. "Really, he was kind of protecting himself with his hands, brought them up and kind of tried to push him away to make sure he has some space. He caught him a little bit on the chin and the guy just went down and started screaming like someone hit him with an iron. The referee bought it."

Croatians shifted attacking midfielder Mohammed Sethi (Mequon Homestead) over to the right midfield spot vacated by Wiedabach, left striker Aaron Lauber (Franklin/UW) to go it alone up top in a 4-4-1 and kept trying to go forward.

"We had a few moments where we would bunker in, but we were still attacking," Toth said. "The one thing that was in our favor, though, is that they exerted a lot of energy trying to break us down and they couldn't and it gave us some opportunities to get forward."

On one of those forays in the first half, Sethi was taken down in the box, Toth said, but the referee ruled the foul was outside the box.

"Clearly, he was inside the box," Toth said. "(The referee) had the guts to give the red, but he didn't have the guts to give the PK. ... We're looking at it and it's like, 'You've got to be kidding me.'

"(The referee) kind of lost control of that game. And unfortunately, we're usually a team that's really calm and collected, we kind of lost our focus, too. They just baited us into that. That's one of those things that they like to do, and it worked."

The match remained scoreless until the final minutes of the first 15-minute period of extra time, when the Croatians couldn't clear out a corner kick and an RWB Adria player poked the ball past Eagles goalkeeper Bryce Boyd (Milwaukee Marquette/UW-Milwaukee).

But minutes later, a corner by the Croatians popped out to Van Osdol at the top of the box. "He just placed it in the upper corner with his left foot," Toth said.

A free kick in about the 113th minute ended up being the difference for RWB Adria. The shot deflected off the head of Eagles midfielder Joe Anderson (Racine Prairie School/UW) in the wall and rolled in past Boyd.

"It just changed enough direction that it froze Bryce," Toth said.

The Croatians then switched to a two-man backline, throwing everything forward in search of another tying goal, and conceded a late goal to account for the final score. "It was all or nothing – 2-1, 3-1, it doesn't make much difference," Toth said.

Veteran midfielder Jason Willan (Franklin) didn't start for the Eagles because of a knee injury. But the 41-year-old was able to take penalty kicks in pre-game warmups, and Toth put him on during the second half of extra time in case the match went to penalties.

RWB Adria went on to beat Michigan's Carpathia Kickers 2-1 after extra time in the final later Sunday to repeat as regional Amateur Cup champions and earn their second berth in the USASA National Cup finals from July 19 to 21 in San Antonio – they also qualified in the Open Cup, outlasting Michigan's Dearborn Stars 6-5 after extra time in the Region II final last Sunday.

CROATIAN EAGLES: Bryce Boyd; Mike Narciso, Xavi Rico, Aaron Schroeder, Tony Patterson; Joe Anderson (Jason Willan), Scott Raymonds; Ross Van Osdol, Mohammed Sethi (Tony Starnes), Andrew Wiedabach; Aaron Lauber (Cheik Drame).

Under-23

The Croatians conceded a controversial penalty in the opening 2 minutes, pulled level in the final quarter hour and gave up a late winner as they fell to Louisville Soccer Alliance 2-1 in the semifinals.

Marquette's Adam Lysak (Milton) scored the equalizer for the Eagles.

Louisville had a corner kick in the final minutes that UW-Whitewater keeper Josh Rohde (Waukesha West) punched away. The ball found its way to a Louisville player at the top of the box who promptly "hit a shot he'll probably never hit again in his life," said Toth, based on reports from coach Scott Suprise and the players. Toth also coaches the Under-23 team, which played at the same time as the Majors in the Amateur Cup.

It wasn't the first time the Kentucky team found some late magic to beat the Croatians: In 2010, Louisville scored twice after the 85th minute to beat the Eagles 3-2 and keep them from advancing at regionals. Last year, the Croatians won the Region II title and advanced to the national final.

Despite Sunday's loss, Toth was pleased with the younger squad.

"There's a lot of talent in that team," he said. "It's nice because some of those guys I know have offers to play PDL and NPSL, and it's nice that they come back here, so we try to make it as competitive as possible. Everyone likes what we do here and how we travel, so eventually some of those guys will turn into players for our men's team."