{"id":45577,"date":"2017-05-21T21:47:16","date_gmt":"2017-05-22T01:47:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/?p=45577"},"modified":"2017-05-21T23:12:25","modified_gmt":"2017-05-22T03:12:25","slug":"pdl-pioneers-beat-flames-in-home-opener","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/?p=45577","title":{"rendered":"PDL: Pioneers Beat Flames in Home Opener"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_45579\" style=\"width: 610px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-45579\" data-attachment-id=\"45579\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/?attachment_id=45579\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nesoccertoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/Wrona-Pioneers.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=\"Wrona-Pioneers\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"&lt;p&gt;Photo credit: David Henry\/sweetdogphotos.com&lt;\/p&gt;\n\" data-medium-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nesoccertoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/Wrona-Pioneers.png?fit=300%2C208&amp;ssl=1\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nesoccertoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/Wrona-Pioneers.png?fit=600%2C415&amp;ssl=1\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nesoccertoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/Wrona-Pioneers.png?resize=600%2C415\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"415\" class=\"size-full wp-image-45579\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nesoccertoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/Wrona-Pioneers.png?w=600&amp;ssl=1 600w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nesoccertoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/Wrona-Pioneers.png?resize=300%2C208&amp;ssl=1 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-45579\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photo credit: David Henry\/sweetdogphotos.com<\/p><\/div>\n<p>The Western Mass Pioneers opened their home slate with a 2-0 win over the Westchester Flames on Sunday at Lusitano Stadium in Ludlow, Mass. <\/p>\n<p>Carlos Ruiz opened the account in the 16th minute while Alex Wrona added an insurance goal in the 85th minute.<\/p>\n<p>Ben Martinez collected four saves to record the clean sheet, the second in three days for the Pioneers following Friday&#8217;s 2-0 win over AC Connecticut.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I thought we played better Friday against Connecticut, but a win is a win,&#8221; Pioneers coach Federico Molinari said after the match. &#8220;Every game is important. We have to be ready for GPS Portland Phoenix at Lusitano Stadium on Friday.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The Pioneers took charge early on after a handball was called inside the Flames&#8217; box, and a penalty was awarded to the hosts. Moments later, Ruiz slotted it home from the spot.<\/p>\n<p>Though Westchester, who was outshot 6-8 by Western Mass, was able to stay within striking distance for much of the match, the Pioneers effectively put it away with full time looming. <\/p>\n<p>On a free kick just outside the right corner of the box, Wrona whipped a curling left-footed shot out of the reach of keeper Anthony Castro.<\/p>\n<p>With the win, the Pioneers improved to six points (2-1-0) while the Flames remained winless in their first two (0-2-0).<\/p>\n<p>The Pioneers return to action on Friday when they host GPS Portland Phoenix at Lusitano Stadium. Kickoff is 7:30pm.  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Pioneers used a pair of dead ball strikes to secure their 2nd win of the weekend. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":45579,"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\/2017\/05\/Wrona-Pioneers.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\/45577"}],"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=45577"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45577\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45582,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45577\/revisions\/45582"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/45579"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=45577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=45577"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=45577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}