West Chester United falls short in Region 1 Amateur Cup final

There will not be a return trip to the National Amateur Cup finals this year for West Chester United.

Shamir Mullings scored twice in the first half for Lansdowne Yonkers FC and West Chester United was never able to find a final ball to make a game of it, falling behind 3-0 at the hour mark on a goal from Joey DeVivo.

Chas Wilson scored off a rebound from a saved penalty taken by captain Luca Mellor to make it 3-1 late but their opponent from New York was too strong on the day and were deservedly the ones celebrating with the first place trophy at the end of the night at the Ukrainian American Sports Center in North Wales.

“They took a couple off the line and we didn’t finish balls when we had opportunities to,” West Chester United head coach Blaise Santangelo said. “They were better than us tonight.”

Santangelo’s squad, which leads their division in both the USL League Two and NPSL, was attempting to get back to the National Amateur Cup finals for the first time since finishing as runner ups in 2018. The competition — the winner of which gets an automatic bid to the U.S. Open Cup — wasn’t played in 2020.

“I have a lot of respect for those guys,” Santangelo said of Lansdowne, which won the competition in 2017. “They do things right, they train, they have good players, they’ve won national titles.”

Santangelo said they’ll return their focus to their two summer league campaigns — their team in the United Soccer League of Pennsylvania is also knocking on the door of another league title — and put their support behind the Lansdowne to capture another national title for Region 1.

A Lansdowne win in the finals would be the fourth in five competitions won by Region 1. Christos FC won in 2016 and Newtown Pride FC are the current title holders from 2019.

Check out a photo gallery and video highlights of the match below.