Marta provided the thrills at halftime but it was Christen Press, Kelley O’Hara and company who sent the hometown fans into a frenzy as the Pali Blues scored four goals in the final 15 minutes to beat the Colorado Force 5-2 in their playoff opener on “Sol Night” last Saturday at Stadium by the Sea. It appeared victory would come easy for the Blues when Press scored on a rebound in the 11th minute, but Colorado hung tough and trailed only 1-0 at intermission. That’s when Marta, the Brazilian national team star, and her Los Angeles Sol teammates signed autographs for adoring young fans. “The United States has the No. 1 women’s team in the world so yes, they play good football (soccer) here,” Marta said, referring to the new Women’s Pro Soccer league. “This is a good time to come here. It’s a really good league with good players.” Colorado’s Nikki Marshall scored twice early in the second half to give the feisty Force a 2-1 lead. Perhaps spurred on by the “Tony Danza Army” and their boisterous cheers, the Blues responded with championship courage. First, Press rifled a shot just under the crossbar from 25 yards in the 75th minute to tie the game. Then, O’Hara trapped a pass from Lauren Cheney, pivoted and fired into the upper left corner for the go-ahead goal in the 88th minute. “Lauren gave me a great ball and I just got separation from the defender,” O’Hara said. “This team has a lot of heart. We’ve really come together as a group.” Knowing Colorado was pressing forward for the equalizer, Iris Mora took advantage with two breakaway goals in stoppage time to provide the final margin in a game that was closer than the scored indicated. “We’re fortunate to just have to worry about us and not what the other team’s doing,” Blues forward Nikki Washington said. “We’re having such an awesome time together and that’s what got us through. We rely on each other.” No player was more thrilled to win than starting defender and Pacific Palisades resident Ali Riley, who has one more game in a Blues uniform before joining Press and O’Hara in Palo Alto to begin preparation for her senior season at Stanford. “I’m so happy [to win], we all wanted it so much,” said Riley, who led New Zealand’s national team against Marta and Brazil at the FIFA Women’s World Cup in 2007. “It’s awesome because this gets us game fit. There’s no better practice [for college] than this and hopefully we can send the team off [to the finals] with one more win.” The defending champion Blues (10-0-3) take on the Hudson Valley Quickstrike in New York on Friday for a berth in the USL W-League Finals. If victorious, the Blues could host the championship game on Friday, August 11. “I was worried about playing a team in our conference for the third time,” Blues Coach Charlie Naimo said. “But I like what we did in this game and there are some things we can carry over to the next one.” Earlier in the day and on the same field the Hollywood Hitmen fell to the 3 Ventura County Fusion, 3-1, in extra time, bringing an end to the local men’s semi-pro squad’s inaugural Premiere Development League season. Led by Palisadian Federico Bianchi, the Hitmen won the PDL’s Southwest Division and were the heavy favorites Saturday. They took a 1-0 lead on a header off of a corner kick by Peter Hazdovac in the 26th minute. Ventura tied it 10 minutes later and neither team scored for the remainder of regulation.
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