One year after a rare disappointing season, Portland’s high-level amateur soccer team – the GPS Portland Phoenix – clinched the Premier Development League Northeast Division regular-season championship with a 2-1 win Sunday against the Real Boston Rams at Memorial Field.
The Phoenix qualified for the PDL playoffs for the sixth time in their seven-year history.
“You know what, it feels amazing after the heartache of last year when our performance was subpar, and I’m putting myself in there as also having a subpar year,” Coach Ally Bain said.
The Phoenix finished the regular season with an 8-1-5 record. The Seacoast Phantoms (9-3-2) of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, tied Portland with 29 points atop the Northeast Division, but the Phoenix won the tiebreaker based on their 2-1-1 record against Seacoast.
Portland will host the division championship game against Seacoast at 7 p.m. Tuesday, July 21, at Yarmouth High. The winner advances to the Eastern Conference final four July 25-26 at a site to be determined. The Eastern Conference champ moves on to the national final four the following weekend.
In addition to qualifying for the PDL playoffs, the Phoenix secured a berth in the 2016 U.S. Open Cup, which pits top amateur teams against professional squads from all three U.S. professional leagues, including Major League Soccer.
Portland’s roster includes several current college players from Maine, along with a sprinkle of key out-of-staters and some international players. The team is backboned by keeper Matt Williams, a 2006 Cheverus High grad and former professional player.
Williams spent the 2014 season playing for the Dayton Dutch Lions of the United Soccer League. Now he’s an account executive for a major insurance company who plays soccer a few hundred yards from his boyhood home on Ludlow Street.
“I’ve got a full-time job and it was time for me to settle down,” Williams said. “It’s been a really good opportunity to still play at this level.”
The PDL, with teams from coast-to-coast, is considered the fourth tier in U.S. soccer, below MLS, the North American Soccer League and the USL.
“It’s a high level,” Williams said of the PDL. “You’ve got a lot of guys that you’ll see at the professional ranks in a couple years. We played against a team tonight that had a few guys that will probably end up suiting up for the (New England) Revolution someday.”
The Real Boston Rams are the Revolution Academy’s U23 team.
The Phoenix are part of New England-wide Global Premier Soccer’s development pyramid.
Dynamic center midfielder Andrew Wheeler-Oniunu played for a GPS club in Bellingham, Massachusetts. This fall, he’ll be a junior captain for Harvard. He said the PDL competition is similar to Division I soccer.
“All of the guys that play here and that we play against are very committed to getting better over the summer,” Wheeler-Oniunu said.
Peabo Knoth, a versatile forward who played high school soccer for Waynflete, will be a junior this fall at Bates College. He began training with GPS when he was 14.
“It was clearly advertised to me that if I wanted to do a level even higher than college, this is what you want to do,” Knoth said.
“For me personally, it was definitely something I wanted to try. I’d say the past two years, it’s like the best players I’ve ever played with.”
Knoth helped set up Portland’s first goal, working down the right wing into the corner, then holding the ball before dropping a pass back to former Windham High player Robby Lentine (Roanoke College). Lentine sent a pretty cross to hard-working left wing Quincy Appah of Ghana (Franklin Pierce College). Appah’s header clanged off the post and bounced out front, and Adam Wood of Australia knocked in the rebound in the 26th minute.
Appah set up Wood’s second goal in the 43rd minute to put the Phoenix ahead 2-0.
Wood plays for Ashford University, an NAIA school in Iowa. He lobbied for a chance to play in the PDL by sending out a highlight video to league coaches across the country. A 15-minute conversation with Bain sold Wood on summering in Maine.
“He seemed to genuinely care about players and care about their development,” Wood said. “And it seemed like he was building a team that was something special.”
The Phoenix have 24 alumni who have played professionally.
“We’ve got some guys (who) if they continue to improve, they’ll get some looks after college,” Williams said.
“And that’s just a testament to the coaching staff. They do a great job bringing in the right guys, but it’s not just about bringing in the talent. You’ve got to have the right team and the right mentality, and that’s what we have this year.”
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