Surrey Guildford United's Erik Anderson holds up the ball against pressure from a Richmond defender.Photo Courtesy of Randy Downes
Surrey Guildford was taking on Richmond United in the semi-final game of the Challenge Cup. In their two matchups this year, SGU took the first easily by a 4-0 margin and Richmond won the second in a tight 1-0 game. Going into the semi final SGU had really already accomplished all their goals for the season and being the only predominantly 1997 born team reamining in cup play, the Surrey boys were quite relaxed not feeling like they had to prove anything against the Richmond squad.
Early on in the game Surrey Guildford built a few excellent chances but just failed to finish, Richmond countered at various points in the first half but failed to put home any of their chances. The first frame of the game was tightly contested and neither team flinched before the break.
In the second half, SGU adopted a more aggressive approach to the game, switching to a 3-5-2 in order to force the issue and get a result out of the game before regulation time completed. Offensively, Surrey Guildford was marginally better in building scoring chances, however, the extra pressure did prove to subdue Richmond's attack. At the end of regulation the teams were still knotted at nil-nil.
In extra time, SGU nearly scored on numerous occations early in the first extra frame but following that, neither Surrey Guildford or Richmond mounted anything terribly dangerous forcing the decision to Penalty Kicks.
Despite making every effort to avoid the scenario, SGU was going to put their Challenge Cup fate to PK's. From the spot, SGU was perfect, going 4-4 with the United keeper coming up with two stops to win the game 1-0 (4-2 on PK's).
Having maneuvered their way past Richmond, Surrey Guildford United was now set to face Coquitlam Metro Ford Roma in the Challenge Cup Final.
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