The much anticipated encounter between Fort lauderdale Rebels and Unity FC got underway at the Lauderhill Sports Complex on Wednesday  June 10, 2009.  The game had to be rescheduled due to rain and Lightening on Saturday, June 6.

Both teams had alot of support, as again the community turned out in droves.  Rebels came into this game as firm favorites as they had already beaten Unity in regular season play.
The game started with both teams eager to put on a good perfomance for the very large crowd. In the 5th minute of play, Unity took a shock lead when the ball was played to Semi Final match winner Terrence Goldson out on the left.  He dribbled past 3 Rebels defenders before sending a right foot shot low to the goal keepers right.  The keeper made a good attempt to try and make a save, but he was well beaten as the ball settled into the corner of the net to make the score 1-0 in favor of Unity FC.

Fort lauderdale Rebels now knew that they were going to be in for a tough fight if they were going to win the CASA Super League on their first attempt.  They were creating chances and thought that they had equalized when Rudy Lormera, their top scorer put the ball into the back of the net, after the Unity goal keeper Shaw had made a save, but he was judged to be in an off side position.
Unity was now doing alot of defending as the Rebels searched for an equalizer. --Five minutes before the half, Rebels found a way through the Unity defense when Lormera dribbled around the keeper and from a very awkward handle, he squeezed the ball into the net to make the score 1-1.

Both teams went in at the half on level terms.  The second half started with both teams trying to get the go ahead goal.  Rebels attacking and Unity counter attacking.  Rebels sent on mid-fielder Junior Alerte and he came close to breaking the dead lock with a 25 yard shot that beat the keeper and hit the underside of the bar, then fell into the arms of the keeper as he sat on the floor.  The linesman was in a very good position and indicatied to the referee that the ball had not crossed the line.  That was the closest either team came to scoring the winning goal in the second half of regulation time. After 90 minutes the scores remained one goal a piece. 

They went into 30 minutes of overtime.  Still no one was able to find a winning goal and so on we went to penalty kicks.  After ten penalties, both teams had scored 4 goals each, so they went into sudden death.  After a missed penalty kick from the Rebels, Unity had to score to win and it was number 14, Jason Heywood who stepped up and scored what proved to be the goal that gave Unity FC their first CASA Super League Title after being runners up 2 times in the last 4 seasons.

Next scheduled games at the Lauderhill Sports Comples- 3rd place game, Friday, June 12th, 7:45pm.  FC Internaxionale vs Thunderbolts.
Lauderhill 50th Anniversary Celebrations-June 21st @ 2:00pm, Haiti Select vs Brazil Select
                                                                              5:00pm, Village United JA vs CASA Allstars.

Written by: Cleveland Brown
Caribbean American Soccer Association (CASA)