The Aztexan

The Aztex U23s make their 2009 home debut at 7:30 tonight, Friday May 22, against the El Paso Patriots. As last year, the PDL squad are playing their games at Round Rock High School's Dragon Stadium, near I-35 and RR 620 in Round Rock (map).

Officially this is the second home game, but it will be the first played in Austin. The first home game, a 4-2 win over the DFW Tornados last week, was played at Baylor University in Waco. That was the first of 3 home games that will be played in venues outside Austin this season, in an attempt to raise awareness of Austin's soccer club in nearby cities. The others will be in Bastrop on June 4, against Houston Leones, and San Marcos on July 3, against the Laredo Heat.

The U23s are currently 1-1-1, while the visiting Patriots are 2-1-0. In addition to being a regular season league match, tonight also counts for Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup qualifying. The Patriots are currently the team to beat, sitting atop the standings with 6 points from 2 games (unfortunately their loss to Laredo last Saturday was not an Open Cup qualifier). The Aztex U23s are tied for second, with 4 points from 3 games. Their chances of qualification aren't great, but they're not eliminated yet.

In other U23 news, defender Chris Spendlove was named to the PDL's nationwide team of week, for his game-winning goal and solid defense in the win over DFW.

While the game tonight may be a smaller crowd than we've been seeing at USL-1 games at Nelson Field, these are some of the best college-aged players in Austin (and El Paso). Their experience is less, but their intensity and passion for the game isn't.

The other nice thing about U23 games is that tickets cost less: adults $8, kids $5, little kids (5 & under) free.

With the addition of the Open Cup qualification on the line, tonight promises to be a good one. It's also worth noting that with so many holes in the USL-1 team at the moment, Coach Heath will be looking for players to pull from Coach Suhnholz's squad.

See you there!

Labels: gameday, U-23, U.S. Open Cup