West Chester United knocked out of USL2 and NPSL playoffs

It was a tough weekend for West Chester United as the local amateur club was bounced from the postseason of both the USL2 and NPSL.

The USL League Two campaign came to an end on Friday afternoon in Newport News, Virginia with a 2-0 loss to Northern Virginia FC in the Round of 32. A day later, the NPSL team came up short of making the Final Four with a 2-1 loss to Ristozi FC at Alvernia University in the NPSL East Region final.

Despite the losses on back-to-back days, West Chester United still has a third competition to play for left with the USASA National Amateur Cup finals this weekend in Milwaukee. The winner gets an automatic bid into the 2026 U.S. Open Cup.

“Not many teams that can get knocked out of tournament play two days and then still have chance to win a national championship next weekend,” West Chester United head coach Blaise Santangelo said after Saturday’s loss. “We’re proud of where we’ve been, what we’ve done over the summer and we still have more to play for. The game hurts at times and we’ve been on the other end of it a lot.”

In both Friday and Saturday’s losses, West Chester United conceded in the first half and was never able to overcome the deficit. The chances came but the final ball eluded a team that has had little trouble scoring in any of the competitions they’ve played in this summer. Ken Roby’s stoppage time goal against Ristozi FC made the last few minutes interesting but they had few answers for the well organized, technical and athletic team from Baltimore.

“They did to us what we like to do to other teams Santangelo said of Ristozi, a first-year team in NPSL. “They have a lot of players that are terrific on the ball. Their back line was athletic. They did a terrific job, you know, just closing things up. I would say all around they just moved the ball quickly and we had a couple opportunities we couldn’t put away.”

Moving ahead to Friday, West Chester plays Sin City FC at 9 p.m. eastern time. Should they win, the final will be on Saturday at 9 p.m. eastern. Say Word FC and two-time champions RWB Adria are in the other Friday semifinal. West Chester last made the National Amateur Cup in 2018, winning the semifinal but falling in the final to five-time champions Bavarian SC. The last local team to win the competition was Philadelphia Inter, which won it back-to-back years in 1973 and 1974.