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Vaughan Through To L1 Cup Final Following 3-0 Victory Over Masters

By League1 Ontario staff, 07/14/16, 10:00PM EDT

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Vaughan Azzurri put away three unanswered goals in their Wednesday night L1 Cup semi-final against Masters FA Saints, progressing through to the Cup final after tallies from Jarek Whiteman (23'), Joseph Di Chiarra (25' penalty) and Jonathan Lao (62').

The clean sheet was earned by Vaughan keeper Jared Brown.

"I'm happy with the final score, but we still have more work to do," said assistant coach, Wayne Mills. "Defensively we need to be more organized, and more committed to our philosophy defensively. Yes we scored goals, and great result, but we still have work to do."

The first chance of the match fell to Masters, with a penalty awarded within the first twenty minutes after a handball in the box. Keeper Brown guessed correctly, diving low to his right to palm away the effort.

Whiteman's opener came after a 40 yard run from Di Chiarra, who picked up the ball from Brown, and after striding through the midfield laid a through ball into the path of Whiteman. A couple shimmies sold the dummy to the defender, and Whiteman cut inside to unleash a shot into the top corner.

Di Chiarra grabbed one of his own only minutes later, expertly slotting a penalty to give the Azzurri a healthy lead on the scoreboard. 

"It was a good game," said Di Chiarra. "I thought we were consistent throughout and we put a lot of pressure on a Masters team that sat back quite a bit."

"We connected a lot of passes, created a lot of chances, and I think we deserved the 3-0 result. I think we could have had more even, but 3-0 is fair." 

There is always room for improvement, possibly the final third where we could have finished more chances, connected more passes," he added, "but we held them accountable and kept them in check most of the game. I thought we did well throughout."

Lao finished off the night for the Azzurri after back to back deflections from shots by Jason Mills and Malcolm Loukides, Lao rising to meet a rebound in the air and redirect the header past sprawling defenders and into the side netting.

Masters head coach Andrey Saveliev accepted the defeat, and spoke to the transition his squad is going through at present.  

"The difference tonight was simply that one team scored and the other team did not score," he said. "We had a difficult time, because we have some players that are working during the week and then are exhausted for training, and so it is difficult to get the preparation we need."

"We are working now on a youth team for next season, and I think you will be surprised," he added. "We had only two chances to score tonight, and of course the missed penalty. Not good enough for a result really."

Vaughan Azzurri - 2014 L1 Cup champions - will now proceed to the men's L1 Cup final on July 30 (7 p.m.) at the Ontario Soccer Centre versus Woodbridge Strikers - the 2015 L1 Cup holders.

Di Chiarra, Vaughan's man of the match for the 2014 L1 Cup final, said the squad was looking forward to the occasion.

"I believe we are playing Woodbridge in the final and rivalries don't get any bigger than that," he said. "I can't wait, it should be a good one."