Vancouver Whitecaps U23 side ended their 2012 PDL season with some silverware last night, following a hard fought 2-1 win over Fraser Valley Mariners at Swangard Stadium.
Despite finishing the season as the top scorers in the Northwest Division, with a goal difference of plus 15, the Caps defeat to Victoria Highlanders on Sunday had already seen their playoff hopes come to an end.
As it turned out, the Caps ended up missing the playoffs by just one point, in what was simply a bizarre season for the U23 side.
There was at least a little crumb of comfort after the final game when the captain Gagan Dosanjh and the rest of the team lifted the inaugural <a href="http://www.juandefucaplate.ca/" target="_blank"><b>Juan de Fuca Plate</b></a>.
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The Plate is the brainchild of supporters of Vancouver Whitecaps and Victoria Highlanders, who wanted to reward the efforts of their PDL teams and award a trophy to the team that performed best in matches between the three British Columbia based teams (with the Mariners being the third team in the mix).
The first plate went down to the wire, with last night's game playing the vital decider in which team was to lift the plate for the first time. (For more information on the background behind the Plate, check out AFTN's Metro column <a href="http://metronews.ca/voices/all-caps-the-vancouver-whitecaps-blog/288704/juan-de-fuca-plate-on-the-line-sunday-as-pdl-action-heats-up/" target="_blank">HERE</a>.)
With Vancouver having no post-season action to look forward to, this was the end of the season and their only chance to win something so they wanted to finish it in some style.
In playing the team with the worst record in the PDL (by a country mile incidentally!), they could have been forgiven for thinking they would have an outing full of goals. And they should have.
Going in to the game, Fraser Valley had one point to their name for the season, having scored just three goals and sitting on a goal difference of minus 35.
The Mariners didn't want to make it easy though and were rugged from the start, as they looked to salvage some pride from a nightmare season.
Their goalkeeper, Mark Village, was phenomenal throughout and put in one of the best goalkeeping displays you are likely to see all season, with save after save after save.
As the game moved past the hour mark, and with Vancouver starting to get a little frustrated at their inability to break down the Fraser Valley back line, the Mariners stunned to home fans and players by taking a shock lead with an absolutely beautiful long range dipping volley from Justin Isidro, which gave 16 years old Nolan Wirth no chance in the Caps goal.
The Whitecaps fought back well and two decisive strikes in the last ten minutes saw them wrap up the win and the Plate, just when it was looking like it was going to be another poor performance by a Caps team when a trophy was at stake.
Cam Hundal levelled proceedings in the 81st minute, cutting into the box before drilling the ball into the bottom left hand corner of the net.
Hundal had another impressive outing in the game and is definitely a player it will be good to see the Caps keeping tabs on.
The same is true with Gagan Dosanjh, and it was the Caps captain who fittingly scored the match winner just two minutes later.
Hundal sent a ball into the box, which caused problems for keeper Village, who could only get a hand on it. Dosanjh was quick to pounce on the rebound and buried it into the Mariners net for what was to prove to be the decisive goal.
The 2-1 win gave Vancouver the Juan de Fuca plate on the away goals rule and a celebratory presentation was made post match, as the players and fans mixed.
It's always great to win some silverware, but missing out on the playoffs, especially by one point, is agonising. This is a team that shouldn't be missing out on post-season action.
And that's been the most frustrating part of the Caps' PDL team this year.
In a division with three MLS teams out of eight, you shouldn't be looking at the Caps missing out on a playoff place when four teams qualify.
The quality with the Caps is strong but they were crippled by absences of their top U18 players due to the USSDA playoffs, suspensions and international commitments.
It's been interesting to see their struggles unfold with the likes of Ben Fisk, Caleb Clarke and Bryce Alderson missing for the Whitecaps. It seemed to be a case of win one game, lose the next.
It just shows you how important these young players are to the Whitecaps future development.
As we said, Hundal and Dosanjh are ones for the Caps to track moving forward and I would put James Farenhorst and Bobby Jhutty into that category as well.
The Caps somehow managed to lose out on a playoff spot to Washington Crossfire, despite the Redmond club scoring less than half the goals that Vancouver did (17 compared to 35) and having a goal difference of minus four.
It's baffling and frustrating in equal measures.
With the PDL season now over for the Whitecaps, all the Residency attention will be turning to Dallas next week as the U18 take part in the USSDA 'Finals Week'.
A number of the players missed out on the Juan de Fuca festivities, but let's hope they will be around to take part and win it again next season.
To others reading this, it might be meaningless silverware, but it's our silverware.
I'd still rather take qualifying for the playoffs of course any day of the week.
Maybe next year we can have both.
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