St Catherine
Standard: Wolves to Playoff for Spot in Semifinals
by Winnipeg Fury
Wolves to playoff for spot in semifinals
St. Catharines
hosting league championship
Jim Wallace
The Standard
Montreal
Dynamite's win Monday night was bad news for St. Catharines Club Roma Wolves.
Montreal clinched fourth place in the Canadian Professional Soccer
League standings with a 2-1 win over Toronto Supra, leaving the Wolves in fifth
place and facing an uphill battle in this weekend's Rogers Cup playoffs to
decide the league champions.
Montreal, who needed three weekend wins to
overtake St. Catharines for the fourth playoff spot, will face the Wolves Friday
night at Club Roma.
As host for the league championship, the Wolves
earned the right to challenge the fourth-place finishers in a wild-card game.
The winner will go on to Saturday's semifinal match.
"We have to dig
very deep," Wolves general manager Armand DiFruscio said Monday night. "We have
to face two strong teams.
"If we win, we will play Ottawa and they're
the league powerhouse."
The first-year Wizards clinched first place
Sunday by blanking Toronto Olympians 1-0 to finish with a 16-3-3 record and 51
points. The Olympians were second at 15-6-1 and 46 points.
The Wizards
also captured the OZ Optics Cup two weeks ago.
"We have an opportunity
to win something," DiFruscio said. "We were denied the cup, now hopefully not
the playoffs."
The Wolves and Dynamite will kick off at 8:15 p.m., with
the winner going home. Saturday's semifinal games are scheduled for 1 and 3 p.m.
The Olympians and Supra meet in the other semifinal.
The consolation
final is slated for Sunday at noon, with the championship game at 2 p.m.
.
.