November 15

Friday afternoon: Jenny and her mother joined me for the drive to Berks County and a milestone evening for a new franchise. The Pennsylvania Roar hosted the Syracuse Silver Knights in the club's inaugural contest at the Arena. I'm familiar to a degree with indoor soccer but the evening was definitely a learning experience albeit an enjoyable one. As an expansion team the Roar will certainly have its share of growing pains, that was evident on this night as Syracuse won the game 18-7. In the MISL scoring is much like basketball, all goals are worth two points except those scored from behind a long-distance arc which are three points. The Silver Knights scored nine goals, all of the two-point variety. The "scores for the Roar" (my goal announcements tagline) came from MISL veteran Ptah Myers and local product Pete Rowley plus a 3-ball from Venezuelan native Angel Rivillo-Ruiz. After the game fans were invited onto the field for an autograph session with the team. In the fall of 2012 the Arena hosted an indoor lacrosse team, the Reading Rockets were successful in their own right but the league they played in was unstable and ultimately folded. The MISL is well-established and hopefully the Berks County fanbase-at-large gets behind this new venture. The Roar's next home date is on Sunday the 24th against the Milwaukee Wave. Take care, thanks for reading.