Heat Headed to Louisiana for Critical Mid-South Division Games
Written by admin, May 27, 2011, 0 Comments
Courtesy Vanessa Guajardo,
New Orleans and Baton Rouge Await Gateway City Club
Laredo, Texas (Thursday, May 26, 2011): The Laredo Heat (3 – 1 – 0, 9 points) will be heading east to Louisiana for two divisional games that will prove to be an early test to all the teams involved. On Friday, May 27th, the New Orleans Jesters, formally the ShellShockers (1 – 1 – 0, 3 points), will welcome the Heat at Pan American Stadium. Kick-off for that match will be at 7:00 PM CST.
The Jesters travelled to West Texas last weekend to open up their season versus the Mid-South Division leaders, the El Paso Patriots (5 – 1 – 0, 15 points) and the West Texas United Sockers (3 – 3 – 0, 9 points). New Orleans opened up in El Paso and lost to the Patriots 3 – 1 but two days later, they beat West Texas 2 – 0 to earn a split on their visit to Texas.
On Sunday, May 29th, the Baton Rouge Capitals (0 – 2 – 0, 0 points) will host Laredo at their new field, Christian Life Academy Stadium. Kick-off for this match will also be at 7:00 PM CST.
The Baton Rouge Capitals (0 – 2 – 0, 0 points) duplicated the New Orleans road trip into Texas; however, unlike their Louisiana counterpart, their opening weekend results were not as favorable as they dropped both games, 2 – 1 to West Texas United and 1 – 0 to the Chivas El Paso Patriots.
Both of these games in Louisiana are a renewed rivalry of sorts for Baton Rouge, New Orleans and Laredo as all three teams played versus each other in the Mid-South Division back in 2008. For the 2009 and 2010 Premier Development League (PDL) seasons, Baton Rouge and New Orleans competed in the Southeast Division of the Southern Conference and just last season, the Capitals ended Laredo’s playoff run with a victory in Jackson, MS in the opening round of the Southern Conference Championship.
That loss for Laredo, decided by penalty kicks, still does not sit well with several returning players and the game on Sunday is being looked at an opportunity for redemption and hopefully a match to set the tone for the remainder of the season.
“This is a very pivotal weekend for our club and even though we are off to a good start it is still important that we come away with the maximum amount of points to keep us within striking distance of the current leader in the Mid-South Division”, said Heat Owner Shashi Vaswani.
“Since we are no longer able to qualify for the U.S. Open Cup this year, it is necessary to start concentrating on the regular season and from experience, it is never too early for that”.
Vaswani concluded, “Personally, I am excited to have New Orleans and Baton Rouge in the Mid-South again because of the type of game they play, which is a very different style to what fans in South Texas are used to, hopefully the alignment will stay the same this time around”.
Though both of these upcoming games versus New Orleans and Baton Rouge are considered U.S. Open Cup Qualifying Games for the Heat; Laredo, New Orleans and Baton Rouge as well as West Texas United and the Rio Grande Valley Grandes have all been eliminated from qualifying this season as the Chivas El Paso Patriots concluded their qualifying games with a perfect 4 – 0 – 0 record and will be representing the Mid-South Division in the annual tournament.
For game updates from Louisiana, fans can follow the Heat on both Twitter (@LaredoHeatSC) and Facebook (Laredo Heat Sc).
