A rain-affected return to Randwick has forced John OShea to reconsider the depth of Godolphins challenge on the Group Two Villiers Stakes.OShea was expecting to have last-start ATC Cup winner Malice and Duca Valentinois as worthy opposition to the warm favourite Fabrizio.But that dual-handed plan has suffered a setback with Randwick receiving more than 35mm of rain in the past 48 hours, putting the track into the heavy range ahead of Saturdays showpiece meeting.Malice doesnt like soft going and OSheas assistant trainer Darren Beadman said the six-year-old was a doubtful runner in the $250,000 race.Malice is a bit of a duffer on (the wet ground) and we might wait for a race like the Summer Cup. Hes got a few options, Beadman said.Duca Valentinois steps up in class but is down in weight.The imports wet track record is sound with two wins and a placing from six starts in soft going and on the 53kg minimum with Brenton Avdulla as his rider, he promises to be one of the best outsiders as a $21 chance.Randwick track manager Nevesh Ramdhani said despite an improved weather forecast for Saturday, he expected only a minimal improvement in a surface that hasnt been raced on for six weeks.With the rain that has fallen its going to take a lot more than twenty-four hours for it to dry out, he said.Almost nine years ago Chris Waller and Hugh Bowman teamed up to claim a Villiers in extraordinary circumstances and they will join forces with Amovatio.In a controversial protest decision, Honor In War won the race in the stewards room from Takeover Target in one of two editions run in 2008.The Villiers was run in a January timeslot over an abbreviated course as racing recovered from a shutdown caused by equine influenza and Honor In War came from the rails draw.Its the same barrier from which Amovatio will launch his claim over a distance at which the best of his three wins came in this years Hawkesbury Cup.Hes going to get a nice, easy run. Hopefully in a midfield position, Waller said.A tough Randwick mile on a wet track wont worry him and I expect him to be finishing strongly.Amovatio is a $13 chance but there was merit in his lead-up run when beaten less than a length into fourth place in the Festival Stakes and he has been trained to peak for the Villiers.Fabrizio has raced once in heavy going, beating midweek horses at Canterbury on his way to becoming one of the most promising horses trained by Gai Waterhouse and Adrian Bott. Nike Vapormax Clearance . -- The Sacramento Kings are set to become the first major professional sports franchise to accept Bitcoin virtual currency for ticket and merchandise purchases. Cheap Nike Vapormax Uk . Rob Manfred, baseballs chief operating officer, testified last week during the grievance filed by the players union to overturn Rodriguezs 211-game suspension. 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Duchene scored two goals and had an assist, helping the Colorado Avalanche beat the Carolina Hurricanes 4-2 on Friday night to match the best 10-game start in team history. HOUSTON -- If the National Womens Soccer League finds the future to which it aspires, it might well produce greater champions than the Western New York Flash in the years ahead.But after the Flashs improbable, barely believable, last-minute escape and penalty shootout win over the Washington Spirit, it will be impossible to produce a champion that did more to earn the confetti angels the Flash players made on the field as darkness descended in Houston.Without a coach until weeks before the opening game in April, the Flash clinched the leagues final playoff berth after a win on the final day of the regular season. They then traveled the width and breadth of the country to play No. 1 seed Portland on its home field in a semifinal. There, in front of the largest crowd in the leagues admittedly short postseason history, the Flash squandered a two-goal lead then built another one to match it.On Sunday, without the coach banished for the final because of a red card in Portland, they fell behind in regulation, then again in overtime after pulling level once. They watched the minutes tick away against the team with the second-best record in the league. They played the 30 scheduled minutes of overtime.They played the 121st minute, at the referees discretion. And the 122nd minute. And the 123rd minute.Finally, Lynn Williams rose to meet a cross and headed home the tying goal in the 124th minute to force the deciding penalty shootout.People talk about teams of destiny, Western New York coach Paul Riley said. This was a team of destiny, for sure.The better team on the day?Washington players and coaches didnt think so -- not that the sentiment stirred much controversy. Western New York players and coaches agreed with the assessment. It wasnt a particularly compelling game for long stretches of regulation, but what compelling play there was came mostly from a Spirit team that built possession and harassed the Flashs back line.A deserving champion? How could a team travel a road more deserving of reward?Washington did everything possible to win the game. Rather than play the Flash on their favored terms, as Portland tried and failed a week earlier, Spirit coach Jim Gabarra adjusted to match the underdog. For the first time all season, he started neither Joanna Lohman nor Diana Matheson, two valuable veteran midfielders. He instead started three center backs, playing with a back three and pushing normal outside backs Ali Krieger and Caprice Dydasco (until Dydasco suffered a knee injury and was replaced by Alyssa Kleiner) forward in a 3-5-2.Although he said it was a secondary look the team had worked on for a long time, it was a bold roll of the dice to break out for the first extended look in the championship game. And it worked.For large majorities in the game, they were very ineffective in the attack, Gabarra said.Again, he got little argument from those on the other side. With three center backs, the Spirit had a numerical advantage on Williams and Jessica McDonald, the Western New York forwards who so tormented regular-season champion Portland a week earlier. With more possession, the Spirit also outnumbered the Flash in midfield for at least the first half.The Flash werent brilliant on the day. They got an early bolt of brilliance when Sam Mewis leveled the game at 1-1 shortly after Crystal Dunn put the Spirit in front in the first half. They got the late miracle equalizer from Williams. They got three saves from goalkeeper Sabrina DAngelo in the shootout -- enough to make Williams penalty kick the clincher.It wasnt a great overall performance. The brilliant bit was beiing on the field in the first place.ddddddddddddThe Flash flew home from Portland on a Sunday redeye and put their bags down at home mid-morning Monday. They trained in Buffalo on Tuesday, then left for Houston the next day. They watched the sunset in three time zones in four days and traveled more than 4,000 miles -- nearly 7,000 in less than a week, if you count the trip to Portland before the semifinal.Thats the nature of this league because the country is so big, McCall Zerboni said. When you look at the leagues in Europe and stuff, they dont travel as much. They dont travel those distances. Thats the way the cookie crumbles.But again, the will of this team, nothing is going to slow us down.Plenty slowed them down a season earlier. Although not the leagues worst team in 2015, the Flash missed the playoffs by a proverbial mile and were every bit as discordant as might be imagined, as they conceded 10 more goals than they scored. A veteran who had a rocky tenure under the weight of high expectations in Portland, Riley was perfectly suited in time and place to again become the underdog. From the minor details of food and improved travel from the teams Buffalo base to its home venue in sort-of-nearby Rochester to the skill development of rising stars such as Williams, Mewis, Abby Dahlkemper and Jaelene Hinkle, it worked.As soon as Paul came in, hes such a players coach and was really just all for us, Dahlkemper said. He listened to us. He fixed the things that needed to be fixed in order to be in this situation. Even off the field, players were together. We love each other, and you can just tell the union off the field translates straight on. We just believe in each other.So it was that a team that made such use of McDonalds long throw-in during the postseason saw its season hinge on a short throw to McDonald from Hinkle in the final minute of overtime -- no time for anything but that. With space all around her, a rare positional lapse from the Spirit, McDonald curled in a high arcing cross toward the back post.Rising between two defenders at the other end of the arc, goalkeeper Kelsey Wys made the decision to come meet the ball. Williams said it was a now or never moment. That led to an understandable thought when she saw the ball make its way into the goal.Holy crap, I scored.?Then came the realization of just how late the Flash left it.First, I was like, Lets go get another one, Williams said. Then I realized, unless we get one of those crazy, two-second goals, its probably not going to happen for us. So prepare for PKs.As was the case a week earlier in Portland, the result left the possibility of one result overshadowing a seasons worth of success. In this case, the result was officially a draw and not even a loss. The final seconds and ensuing penalty shootout certainly left Crystal Dunn unjustly in the shadows after she scored two goals.In very nearly adding an NWSL title to the U-20 World Cup and NCAA titles she earlier claimed, Dunn played like the player Williams displaced as MVP. After a regular season in which she scored just two goals, willingly taking on a different role that Gabarra said he hoped would continue her evolution into one of the best players in the world, it was sweet redemption.Until it turned bittersweet in the blink of an eye in the 124th minute.As strange as it sounds for one of the most improbable escapes from the most improbable of finalists, those confetti angels were everything the Flash deserved. ' ' '
