September 17, 2006

In an attempt to stay sharp during their week off before facing either the Puerto Rico Islanders or the Charleston Battery in the USL 1st Division semifinals, the team headed south to take on the USL 2nd Division's Harrisburg City Islanders last evening.

The Rhinos took the game 4-0 on a first half goal from Charles Gbeke and second half goals from Aaran Lines, who scored twice, and Matthew Delicate.

The Rhinos will host the first leg of the two game, total goal semifinal series on Friday night at 7:35pm at PAETEC Park.

Playoff Beard Time

In hockey, most players refuse to shave while their team is alive in the postseason. Well, the Rochester Rhinos are going to try and have their best Coach Calloway and Fitzpatrick impersonations on display as the players are growing playoff beards of their own.

And there is talk of a beard related promotion or contest at Friday night's game.

Is lineup stability only an issue in Rochester?

There was a lot of debate yesterday amongst the Kick This! crew about a variety of topics from the team allowing dirty laundry to be aired in the press to lineup stability from game to game.

Well, I decided to look at the starting lineups for the Rhinos and the Montreal Impact this season to see if one team had a lot more consistent lineup than the other this season. And what I found out was rather interesting.

Rochester had 11 different sets of starting forwards throughout the season and Montreal had 12.

The Rhinos had 18 different sets of starting midfielders to Montreal's 24.

The Rhinos had 10 different sets of starting defenders and Montreal had 14.

So, if you look at the starting combinations, Montreal had less stability than the Rhinos did this season.

The one area that Montreal was a little more stable in was the number of different players that started in the various positions.

Up top, Montreal had 7 different players start and the Rhinos had 9.

In the midfield, Montreal had 12 different players start and the Rhinos had 14.

On defense, the Impact had 9 different starters to the Rhinos 8.

And laregly due to injury, Montreal had twostarting goalkeepers and Rochester had only Scott Vallow start in goal.

So all and all, from looking at what Montreal did this season, it's hard for me to say that the Rhinos lineup shuffling is vastly different than what the team in front of them went through this season.

The views and opinions expressed in this column are those of the author, and not necessarily those of the Rochester Rhinos or SoccerSam.com. Feel free to send any comments or complaints to news@soccersam.com. James promises to read (but not to respond) to all of them.