Well after a well deserved vacation I guess it is time to get back to writing about some sports!!

Last night infront of 1,626 crazy fans at the UMBC Stadium the Crystal Palace FC took on the Cleveland City Stars for 2nd place in the USL2 division.

The game was enjoyable from the standpoint of who I was watching the game with but not from the standpoint of watching the referees make unbelievable calls, one after the other.

Last night I was in the VIP tent with my wife and son Connor and we were joined by members of the Ed Block Foundation and former Blast Star Tim Wittman. It was nice to see Tim after several years and he looks to be fit enough to go back onto the field and still play.

Before the game I caught up with Crystal Palace Co-Manager Jim Cherneski who told me this was a must win game for the Palace. This couldn't have been more true after the Crystal Palace side had lost three of their last matches in the USL2 and had went from 1st place to third place in the standings.

You could tell by the way both managers  (Medd and Cherneski) were before the match that this game was extremely important. Even the players had a sense of urgency as I watch them warm up before the game.

As the game started I felt that the Crystal Palace FC would come out to tight to start, but this was far from the truth, as they came out and attacked the Cleveland team from the get go. Both teams battled hard until the 28th minute when Paul Robson sent a cross into the box and Pat Healey redirected the pass with a header into the net pass the waiting Cleveland Keeper. This was Pat's 5th goal of the season, he had scored 2 goals this past week against LA in their US Open 1st Round win.

In the second half the Crystal Palace and Cleveland teams continued to battled as they did in the 1st half. In the 59th minute Gary Brooks scored Crystal Palace's 2nd goal on a cross from Kevin King.

Cleveland got on the board in the 69th minute with a controversional call after a free kick was disallowed then for some odd reason the line judge came onto the field to tell the head referee that the ball had been deflected, giving Cleveland their 1st goal. We were standing right where the play had happened and we never saw the deflection that the line judge saw or did we see the head referee ask for the line judge to help with the play.

With the 2-1 win over Cleveland the Crystal Palace team is now in a two way tie for 2nd place in the USL2.

I really do not like to talk about the officals of any game I watch because they are just apart of the game that you have to accept. But after watching this game last night the three referees that did the game should not be allowed to do another USL game. Most of the time from what I saw the referees were out of position to see the plays and the head referee was to eager to pull the cards on plays that were not fouls. He could have seen some of these if he was in the correct position instead of hanging around the midfield line all night!! The head referee in my opinion never had control of this game and to me it is a lucky thing that no one got hurt or got tossed from the game!!