Taylor Twellman celebrates his second goal against the Chicago Fire in the 2002 playoffs 6
The team had a new coach in former English Premier League star Steve Nicol It had exciting new players including striker Taylor Twellman and midfielder Steve Ralston And Gillette Stadium was brand new Twellman led the league in combined goals and assists that season The new-and-improved Revs made the playoffs though just barely They closed the season on a 5 0 1 run to sneak into first place in the Eastern Conference But they had a losing record overall for the year and a deep playoff run seemed unlikely STAYING HOT Instead the team’s run of late-season success continued into the playoffs Twellman scored a game-winning goal and added another tally as the Revs beat the Chicago Fire in the conference semifinals That sent New England to the conference finals against Columbus The Crew was an original MLS team like New England But Columbus had been much more successful thus far The series opened with a scoreless tie on October 6 at Gillette Stadium The series then shifted to Columbus Almost immediately New England grabbed the lead Defender Jay Heaps rarely a goal scorer found the net off a corner kick in 7
the third minute New England then held on for 87 minutes to get its first road playoff win That left the Revs on the verge of something big in Game 3 The team’s defense was feeling pretty good about itself It had surrendered only two goals all playoffs and none yet against Columbus So when goals by Ralston and Wolde Harris fired New England to a 2 0 halftime lead it looked like that would be more than enough HANGING ON After 80 minutes Columbus suddenly figured out how to attack The Crew scored two quick goals tying the match in the 85th minute From there neither team was able to score the winner so the match went to a 10-minute extra time period If Columbus won it would tie the series and force another extra time period in which the first goal would win the series New England’s defense may have gotten lost for those five minutes late in the game But the team still had confidence All it had to do was not allow another goal for 10 minutes And that was exactly what the Revs did New England advanced to the league playoff final 8
New England’s Steve Ralston right battles for the ball against the Crew’s Eric Denton 9
