July 26, 2012
BROKEN
Breakers season ends with semifinal loss to Red Stars

ROCHESTER, NY – It just wasn’t their day. The top-seeded Boston Breakers gave up an early goal, lost defender Courtney Jones to injury less than 15 minutes in and couldn’t come back, falling 3-1 to the Chicago Red Stars in a WPSL Elite semifinal match Wednesday at Sahlen’s Stadium.

"We just didn’t have it. We were outmanned in the midfield. We needed people to step up, and it didn’t happen. We had too many pieces missing with Cat (Whitehill) missing and losing Courtney (Jones) early," Breakers Head Coach Lisa Cole said. "We came out and had a good attack (in the second half), and they countered, and our midfield didn’t recover."

Lauren Fowlkes opened the scoring for the Red Stars, putting home a corner kick by Lori Chalupny. The score remained 1-0 in favor of Chicago entering the second half, but less than 10 minutes in, Chalupny took a feed from Ella Masar to take a 2-0 advantage. Julianne Sitch combined with Masar to set up the third and final Chicago goal, which came in the 66th minute.

Prior to that goal, Boston nearly pulled within one. Seconds after entering the game in the 56th minute, Australian midfielder Tameka Butt came close to scoring on her first touch of the game, latching onto a loose ball in the corner, but her shot was stopped by Chicago keeper Jamie Forbes.

The Breakers made a late push and scored in the 80th minute. After a failed clearance by Chicago, the Breakers took advantage of the miscue. Amanda DaCosta, in her return from a high ankle sprain that sidelined the midfielder for the past two weeks, scored her first goal of the season to make the score 3-1. But the Red Stars held on for the win, which sends them to the WPSL Elite Championship against the Western New York Flash, who beat the New York Fury, 2-1, in the first semifinal Wednesday night.