Wednesday, September 10, 2003

 

The A-League match Friday at 8:00 pm ET features the 15-6-7 Charleston Battery taking on the 15-7-6 Rochester Raging Rhinos at Frontier Field in Rochester, New York in the first game of their two-leg, aggregate score Eastern Conference Championship playoff series. It is the third year in which the two clubs have met in the postseason since Charleston joined the A-League in 1997.

Along with the Vancouver Whitecaps, Charleston and Rochester are the only clubs in the A-League that have advanced to the playoffs each year since the league came under the USL umbrella in 1997. In that time Rochester has dominated postseason play between the two with a 3-0 record. Charleston, in the A-League Semifinals for the first time, has yet to register a goal against the Rhinos. The Battery were blanked, 3-0, at Rochester in their 1998 First Round meeting and were shutout in their 2000 aggregate score Eastern Conference Semifinal series 3-0 (2-0 in Rochester).

The Battery were winless against the Rhinos this season with a 2-1 loss at home and a 2-2 draw in Rochester. In the Division Finals, however, the three teams that had won the season series against their opponent failed to advance. Rochester, which is looking for their sixth championship appearance in eight years, has dominated the all-time series between the two with an overall record of 10-1-1 with Charleston's lone victory coming at Blackbaud Stadium on August 9, 2000.

The winner of the Charleston-Rochester series will face the winner of the Western Conference Finals, featuring the Seattle Sounders and Minnesota Thunder in their second-ever playoff series. The two met in the 1998 Western Conference Semifinals with Minnesota sweeping the three-game series with a pair of 2-1 wins.

The pair split the season series this year with each team winning on the road. The last six meetings between the two have ended in favor of the visiting team, seven including the Sounders' 1-0 road win in the Third Round of the Lamar Hunt US Open Cup this year. The Thunder hold the all-time series edge with an overall league and playoff record of 9-5-0 but have a better mark in Seattle at 6-1-0 than at home, where they have a losing 3-4-0 mark.

The two conference champions will square off Saturday, September 20. The match will be televised on Fox Sports World. Three of the four semifinalists have won the A-League championship with Rochester leading the way with three (2001, 2000, 1998). Seattle has won it twice (1996, 1995) and Minnesota once (1999). Although Charleston has not won the A-League title, the Battery claimed a championship at the third division level in 1996. Should Rochester and Minnesota both advance, it would be the fourth title game between the two clubs, who met in three straight finals from 1998-2000. Rochester lost 2-0 in Seattle in the 1996 final in their inaugural season.