Photo by Chuck Kirman. Courtesy Ventura County Star.

Two days before reporting to training camp for the Westmont Men’s Soccer 2009 season, Dillon Barna was playing for a national championship with the Ventura County Fusion of the USL’s Premier Development League. The Fusion, who hosted the Chicago Fire at Buena High School in Ventura on Saturday night, claimed the championship with a 2-1 victory despite playing a man down for more than 55 minutes.

The Fusion took a 1-0 lead in the ninth minute on a header by Ivan Becerra off a cross from Rodrigo Lopez.

“We controlled the pace of the game until the red card to Manny Guzman happened (in the thirty-third minute),” said Barna. “We were getting chances and got the one goal off the header from Ivan. I thought we were going to add some more and then go home. But we got the red card and had to pull the guys in and play defense the whole game.”

The man advantage finally took its tool on the Fusion which yielded a single goal in the seventy-fourth minute off the toe of Andre Akpan.

“You could see us getting fatigued as we were chasing the forwards,” said Barna. “They were one goal down and one man up. They had the freedom to throw everything at us knowing our attack was not going to be what it should. So we were in a situation where we had the win but we needed to protect it. Tactically, we were thinking, ‘Don’t leave your defenders in one-v-one situations.’ Unfortunately, that is what happened and led to their goal.”

But Barna and the rest of the Fusion’s defense responded by shutting down the Fire for the rest of the game. The championship winning goal came in the final minute of play. The Fusion was awarded a free kick close to the right touchline. Lopez passed the ball into the penalty box but it was cleared by the Fire. Barna retrieved the ball, passed it back into the box, and the Fusions’ Alfonso Motagalvan sent the game winner into the net.

The Fusion, seeded at number 20 in the postseason tournament, became the lowest seeded team to ever win the PDL championship.

“Our division is a competitive division,” noted Barna. “Within our area you have a bunch of big colleges – UCLA, UCSB, Cal State Fullerton. There are a lot of players looking to go on (in their soccer careers). The fact that we weren’t a high seed really didn’t mean much to us. If you look at our record, we have a lot of ties. It means that a few times we got lucky, a few times we just couldn’t put ourselves over the hump. But we knew that when it came time to do it we could, and we did.”

Barna began playing with the Fusion after his freshman year at Westmont and has found the level of competition to be exciting.

“The season started May 1,” noted Barna, “but we played some preseason games with MLS teams. We played Real Salt Lake and Seattle Sounders. A lot of the guys on the PDL team have played at the big schools or have played professionally. So there is a level of professionalism that I try to transfer over to Westmont.”

Before playing in the championship game, the Fusion traveled to Laredo, Texas for the quarterfinal and semifinal games.

“We eked out the first game 2-1 over Kitsap Pumas,” said Barna. “The second game against Bradenton Academics was insane. We went down 1-0 in the first 15 minutes and then we scored six unanswered goals and won the game 6-1. I was playing defense and watching our boys just hold the ball and pass between them. I’m like, ‘Keep it up guys. Can I just pull up a chair? This is exciting stuff.’”

Barna is looking for more excitement to come.

“I’m looking at it as the first of two (national championships),” said Barna. “Next is the NAIA nationals.”