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Chill look to continue playoff success against Michigan

Gio Petgraglia says his troops aren’t headed to Pontiac, Mich. for a summer vacation.
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Thunder Bay's Kyle Andrade heads a Winnipeg corner kick out of harm's way last weekend. The Chill are focusing on stopping Michigan's set plays when the Premier Development League playoffs kick off in Pontiac, Mich. (Leith Dunick, tbnewswatch.com)

Gio Petgraglia says his troops aren’t headed to Pontiac, Mich. for a summer vacation.

“If we were, we’d go to the beach,” said the first-year Thunder Bay Chill coach, prepping his team for their return to the Premier Development League playoffs.

No, this trip is all business.

And the task at hand is anything but easy.

The Chill, who missed the postseason a year ago, had to sit and watch their long-time rivals, the Michigan Bucks, capture the elusive PDL championship, a fate not bestowed on them since 2008. To get back to the title game, the Chill will first have to get past the favoured Bucks, the overall league champions in 2015 with an 11-1-2 record.

They’ll have to do it on the indoor turf at Ultimate Soccer Arenas on Friday night, in front of the Michigan faithful, against a team that rolled through the regular season, allowing just 12 goals in 14 contests.

It’s not like they haven’t managed it before.

“It’s a special game,” Petraglia said. “We are good rivals against them. But we’ve never lost against them in the playoffs and we’re going to keep this record.

“But this year we’re going to approach it a little bit differently, because they are the more mature team, the last champions. So we’re going to go there as a young team. But it’s going to be an even game, I’m pretty sure. It doesn’t really matter what the standings are, it doesn’t really matter who is more mature. It’s one game.”

Make no mistake, the Chill have plenty of talent.

If it weren’t for a couple of late-game slips against St. Louis – twice they blew two-goal, second-half leads and settled for ties – and an uncharacteristic first ever loss to the lowly Springfield Synergy, the Chill were right there this season, hanging tough with eventual Heartland Division champion Des Moines.

There’s no time for mental lapses now, said team MVP Pedro Adan, returning to the club after a one-year absence, his last appearance before 2015 the 2013 championship game in Austin, Texas.

“We’re trying to focus on that, we’re trying to help each other out in the field as well as outside of the field – just talking to each other and letting each other know that it’s just no one half. You’ve got to play two halves to keep going,” Adan said.

“And you’ve got to know it’s playoffs and whatever team makes the mistakes is going to end up losing the game. So we’ve got to be aware of that.”

Offensively, the Chill have little to worry about. Up front the Chill boast one of the most powerful set of forwards in the PDL, led by all-time leading scorer Brandon Swartzendruber, former league MVP Sullivan Silva and Sergio Campano Franco, also a member of the 2013 finalists.

Defensively is where the trouble has arisen, though with a 9-2-3 regular-season record, the Chill’s flaws were always apparent.

To beat the Bucks, the key is stopping the set plays, Michigan’s offensive bread and butter.

Adan said it’s what they’ve been focusing on in practice.

“It’s hard to say if you’re going to have corner kicks or free kicks against, but we have been preparing very well for the free kicks, whatever Michigan has under their belts. We’re ready for them. We’re ready to face them.”

Kick-off is Friday night at 7:30 p.m.

The winner will take on either Kitchener-Waterloo or Des Moines in Saturday’s Central Conference championship.



Leith Dunick

About the Author: Leith Dunick

A proud Nova Scotian who has called Thunder Bay home since 2002, Leith is Dougall Media's director of news, but still likes to tell your stories too. Wants his Expos back and to see Neil Young at least one more time. Twitter: @LeithDunick
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