With the GPSD fall season winding down, there was an undecided manner in GPSD Division 4 that involved one of the TAFC member clubs.  North End United, the only undefeated club in the table going into the final regular season weekend, thought they just had to win their final fixture against Oregon National Guard FC to secure a championship berth.  While the NEU lads took care of their result, they were unaware that the team leading the standings, Ronler Hacres, was upset in their final schedule match versus Mayday.

 Mayday was hoping to overtake NEU and jump into the championship match, but the results ended up causing a tie in second place on the table.  This necessitated a rather strange circumstance where a cancelled game would need to be completed before a championship pairing would be determined.  Ironically, that cancelled match was North End United versus Ronler Hacres, and GPSD put the rescheduled match on Thursday, November 17 at LaSalle High School in SE Portland.  With an NEU win or draw, they would secure second place and the same two clubs would meet on November 20 at Gladstone High School for the GPSD Division 4 title.  A Ronler Hacres win would put the result into a tiebreaker situation and since Mayday and NEU drew back on November 6, it would mean GPSD would have to determine the participant.

While we didn’t get an official match report, we did get an email from Steve Joinson, the NEU manager, who happily reported that NEU had defeated Ronler Hacres 6 to 0 under blustery, chilly conditions.  Joel Weakland and Marcus Nelson scored a brace while Allen Cook and Shiloh Rodriguez added single tallies in securing the big win.  The result means that NEU finishes the 2011 fall season undefeated and has the momentum going into November 20’s championship match.  The championship event will take place under the lights at 6 PM in Gladstoneat Dick Baker Stadium just off the campus of GladstoneHigh School.  As a reminder, FC Portlandia meets earlier in the day at the same location in the GPSD Division 2 championship against SDFC Eastburn at 12 noon.  Good luck to both teams in their matches this weekend, and up the TAFC!