It was quite the year for the Wilmington Hammerheads, who returned to the final for the second straight year and saw success in the Lamar Hunt US Open Cup.

A year after seeing their dreams shattered by the Long Island Rough Riders at their Legion Stadium, the Hammerheads returned to the league championship game in a showdown with the Westchester Flames and came away 2-1 winners in double-overtime.

Despite a terrible thunderstorm that forced an hour delay, the Hammerheads would not disappoint their nearly 4,000 faithful fans as they fought the Flames to double-overtime before Junior Zarate found second-half substitute Joey Johnson for the game-winner less than a minute into the second extra frame.

The championship success was the highlight of a season that also included a memorable run in the US Open Cup that continued past the night of the PSL final. Wilmington downed the PDL Bradenton Academics in the Second Round, 2-1, before registering their first upset of the tournament, a 2-1 victory over the A-League's Atlanta Silverbacks.

In their Fourth Round fixture, the Hammerheads pulled the stunner of the tournament with a shocking 4-1 victory over the Dallas Burn of Major League Soccer to advance to the quarterfinals, where they would face DC United.

Just four days after winning the PSL title, Wilmington played host to United and nearly came away with another shocker, falling 1-0 on a 30th minute tally from Ronald Cerritos before a crowd of 5,026.

Wilmington’s success came at the expense of the Carolina Dynamo, who were enjoying their best season since winning back-to-back titles in 1993 and 1994. Carolina finished as the regular season champion with a 14-2-4 record, finishing four points ahead of defending champion Long Island. Carolina’s fantastic season would come to a crashing halt, however, in the first round in a 3-1 aggregate series loss to Wilmington.

The defending champion Rough Riders would suffer a similar fate, falling to the eighth-seeded New Jersey Stallions 5-4 in penalty kicks after a 0-0 draw in their first round match-up.

Meanwhile, former PDL champion Westchester made a surprising run to the final as the seventh seed, downing the New Hampshire Phantoms 4-3 on aggregate in the first round and New Jersey 3-0 in penalties after a 3-3 semifinal draw.

Out west, the Utah Blitzz came on strong at the end of the season to finish third in the league and defeated regional rival California Gold 1-0 in the first round match before falling 2-1 to Wilmington in the semifinals.