Bellingham United season ends in 4:3 loss at Challenge Cup

—by Kyle Elliott, for BUFC—

Bellingham United FC finished its season out with arguably the most exciting game of the year. The team competed in the Challenge Cup, the Pacific Coast Soccer Leagues playoffs, against PoCo City on Saturday, July 28, but lost 4-3.

Bellingham split the regular season results with PoCo and finished just one point behind them in the standings.

Bellingham started out by being scored on twice in the first 15 minutes, but both teams created chances early. Bellingham United started goalkeeper Drew Smiley for the first round match up.

“It was wide open at the start,” Smiley said. “It was too bad that they drew first blood, but both teams were attacking.”

PoCo scored a third goal in the 31 minute. Mllad Rahmati scored his second goal of the game.

“[Rahmati] was unstoppable out there,” Smiley said. “We didn’t have an answer for him.”

United scored their first goal right before halftime. Andrew Weishaar received a pass from Nick Salleto and put it away.

United went into the second half with the momentum and head coach Lance Calloway made a couple changes to the team.

“The guys came out a lot better in the second half, and PoCo came out kind of cocky,” Calloway said. “Credit to them, they are a great team and it was a great game overall.”

PoCo scored again right away in the second half with Rahmati earning a hat trick before being pulled out of the game due to injury.

“We had a lot of energy,” Calloway said. “We created a lot of chances and didn’t make any mistakes in the second half.”

United’s Sunjinda Dangvan scored a goal to bring them back to being down only 4-2 in the 62 minute.

Weishaar continued to create chances and had two balls saved off the line preventing him from getting a second goal.

United then scored their third and final goal from Tyler Bjork.

“We pushed everything we had in the final 15 minutes,” Calloway said. “It was a let-down to lose, but I couldn’t be prouder of the effort by the team.”

Calloway named the team as Man of the Match. United’s first season is officially over for the year.

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