Oly Town FC beats Park City 4-0, sets up West coast semifinal vs Ballard

The Cinderella story for Oly Town Artesians FC this year continues in the postseason as they put up a spectacular performance in their USL2 playoff debut after thrashing a distraught Park City Red Wolves SC, 4-0, in the Round of 32 at the Interbay Stadium in Seattle Friday afternoon.

Coming in as the fourth seed, the Artesians showed big heart and great passion in the match from start to finish as they were unfazed by the undefeated record brought by their top-seeded opponents in the Mountain Division and knocked the Utah-based Red Wolves out of the national playoff with four goals unanswered to advance to the Western Conference semifinal.

Oly Town FC came swinging right after the opening whistle as they kept the ball at their own half of the field and pressed the opponent’s backline to give them a small chance to building up the play. Winning the long balls and a progressive style of play has been key for a usually defense-oriented Oly Town to dominate possession early but just could not finish the threats in the first few minutes.

The floodgates were opened for the Artesians finally after 38 minutes of action as a long free kick from Federico Russo was flicked by a header from Artesian captain Jack Sluys and found an unmarked fullback Habib Famuditimi from the far post easily tapping to open the scoring finally after earlier flurries of attack.

The Oly Town FC starting XI vs Park City Red Wolves

Still hungry for more goals, Oly Town took advantage of the momentum and doubled their lead just before halftime, as a Trevor Thompson in-swing corner found center-back Camron Miller in the far post, who received the ball with an outrageous lobbed header that caught out the Park City goalkeeper frozen in his position while the ball chips into the net to make it 2-0 before the halftime whistle.

With fresher legs coming from the halftime break, the Artesians continued their attacking rhythm as a fast buildup play from the midfield in their half finds Gil de la Luz cutting inside and dribbling past two Park City defenders in the left flank before hitting the ball on the back of the net to beat the goalkeeper in the near post as Oly Town go 3-0 up game set and done, with less than a minute of action in the second period.

The cherry on top came in the 69^th minute as a fast-paced tiki-taka play on the right midfield found substitute Sean Sent wide open in the penalty box, but his shot was parried out by the goalkeeper but the rebound was slammed home by substitute Cooper Brunell from the right side as the Artesians never looked back from the lead at 4-0 until the final whistle and booked their first outing in the Round of 16 after a successful debut in the playoffs.

This massive win sets up the most important showdown for Northwest dominance in the Western conference semifinal, as later that day, our inter-state arch-enemies Ballard FC beat the New Mexico United U23, 3-0, to confirm our opponents in the upcoming Round of 16 fixture.

The conference semifinal showdown between Oly Town FC and Ballard FC will cap off a 4-game year between the two clubs in what could be a brewing rivalry between both Northwest sides. Ballard took two of the matches early in the season, but Oly Town got the better of them the last time they played against each other at the Interbay Stadium back in June after winning a 3-2 classic while playing a man down.

Kickoff for the upcoming Northwest Derby will be at 2 p.m. Sunday, July 23, at the Interbay Stadium.