{"id":43366,"date":"2016-07-09T10:54:41","date_gmt":"2016-07-09T14:54:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/?p=43366"},"modified":"2016-07-09T19:36:53","modified_gmt":"2016-07-09T23:36:53","slug":"pdl-pioneers-clinch-playoff-berth-in-wild-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/?p=43366","title":{"rendered":"PDL: Pioneers Clinch Playoff Berth in Wild Win"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_43369\" style=\"width: 610px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-43369\" data-attachment-id=\"43369\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/?attachment_id=43369\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nesoccertoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/Pioneers-1-1.png?fit=600%2C415&amp;ssl=1\" data-orig-size=\"600,415\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"Pioneers-1\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"&lt;p&gt;Photo credit: Western Mass Pioneers&lt;\/p&gt;\n\" data-medium-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nesoccertoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/Pioneers-1-1.png?fit=300%2C208&amp;ssl=1\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nesoccertoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/Pioneers-1-1.png?fit=600%2C415&amp;ssl=1\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nesoccertoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/Pioneers-1-1.png?resize=600%2C415\" alt=\"Photo credit: Western Mass Pioneers\" width=\"600\" height=\"415\" class=\"size-full wp-image-43369\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nesoccertoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/Pioneers-1-1.png?w=600&amp;ssl=1 600w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nesoccertoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/Pioneers-1-1.png?resize=300%2C208&amp;ssl=1 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-43369\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photo credit: Western Mass Pioneers<\/p><\/div>\n<p>What a difference a year can make.<\/p>\n<p>One season removed from a last-place finish, the Western Mass Pioneers punched their ticket to the PDL playoffs with a wild 4-3 win over the Westchester Flames on Friday at Lusitano Stadium in Ludlow, Mass.<\/p>\n<p>Veteran midfielder Maxi Vieira bagged a quick brace by scoring in the fourth and eighth minutes while Kyle Tomas tallied in the 37th minute to give the hosts a seemingly secure lead going into halftime. <\/p>\n<p>But the Flames mounted a furious comeback as Jonathan Uy struck not once, but twice in the 46th and 76th minutes before James Thristino equalized in the 84th minute, turning the match upside down.<\/p>\n<p>With the score suddenly level at three apiece in the waning moments, Ben Lamb came through with a 90th minute tally to send the Pioneers to their first postseason berth since 2008, when the squad competed in the now-defunct USL-2 league. The team moved to the PDL in 2010.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">90&#39; GOOOOOOOOAAAALLLL BEN LAMB SCORE THE GO AHEAD GOAL AND THE PIONEERS WIN 4-3 <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/XWejY6iYvj\">pic.twitter.com\/XWejY6iYvj<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; WMPioneers (@PioneersPDL) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/PioneersPDL\/status\/751587405514285056\">July 9, 2016<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Lamb&#8217;s winner also extended the Pioneers&#8217; unbeaten streak to eight (6-0-2), a run few would have predicted after Western Mass went 1-11-2 in 2015.<\/p>\n<p>The postseason-clinching victory pushed the Pioneers&#8217; current mark to 7-1-4 (25 points), allowing them to reclaim their spot atop the Northeast Division table. The loss dropped the Flames to 4-8-1 (13 points), leaving them in seventh place. <\/p>\n<p>Western Mass will attempt to strengthen their hold on first place on Friday, Jul. 15 when they host FC Boston at Lusitano Stadium. Kickoff is set for 7:30pm.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Pioneers punched their playoff ticket thanks to a late Ben Lamb strike in Friday&#8217;s wild 4-3 win over Westchester. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":43369,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[84],"tags":[891,1291,892,1559,1294],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nesoccertoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/Pioneers-1-1.png?fit=600%2C415&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43366"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=43366"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43366\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43372,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43366\/revisions\/43372"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/43369"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=43366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=43366"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=43366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}