Monday, November 24, 2003
Sunbirds advance to Tuesday's championship match with 4-1 win over Berry of Georgia

Box score

Olathe, Kansas - The Sunbirds have a little unfinished business, and hope to take care of that tomorrow evening, about 5:00 PM.

FPU, seeded No. 8, continued their surprising success with a 4-1 romp over No. 5 Berry College of Georgia in a NAIA national semifinal this evening.

Surprising to some perhaps, but not to FPU head coach Jaime Ramirez. "We have been aiming at this for a long time," said Ramirez. "We are exactly where we wanted to be. We finally have an opportunity to play before a national audience. I think people are surprised and impressed. They have paid us many compliments."

FPU got on the board at 17:58 when Daniel Flores finished a cross from Eddie Gutierrez. Adam Arteaga gave the Sunbirds a little breathing room when he cleaned up what Fabricio Codeceira and Orlando Ramirez had started. Codeceira crossed to Ramirez, but his header hit the cross bar and caromed to Arterga who headed it in.

Codeceira one-timed a 40-yarder past Byron Schueneman to make it 3-0 with just over 12 minutes to play. Joshua Kaminski, following Codeceira's lead, hammered one home from 35 yards out less than five minutes later.

Daniel Ullrich spoiled Josh Ollenberger shutout bid 43 seconds into stopage time. The Vikings season ends at 21-2-1.

"Eddie got us going again," said Jaime Ramirez. "He performed his magic on the right side on our first goal. It was a superb play."

"It was a good team effort," continued Ramirez. "They (the officials) are letting us play and we have maintained our composure. Our defense has been excellent. We have kept our shape in the back. Gaston (Cignetti) and Dustin (Fuller) are picking up their strikers in the midfield and Rojas (Padilla), (Erin) Breen and Nick (Lomeli) have played well in front of Josh."

The temperature, which dipped into the low 20s, had little effect on either team.

FPU, now 22-1-0 on the season, will face No. 2 Rio Grande of Ohio (23-0-1), a 1-0 winner over No. 3 Hastings of Nebraska (23-2-0).

The Sunbirds are no strangers to the championship match. They played for the national title in both 1984 and 1985 when Jaime Ramirez was an assistant to then head coach Ben Norton. The Sunbirds lost both contests in sudden death overtime to West Virginia Wesleyan

Link to NAIA datacast

Link to NAIA National Championship information