Following Calgary Foothills FC’s PDL National Semifinals win against the Ocean City Nor’easters on Saturday, players summed up the historic accomplishment in one word: huge.

The Canadian club defeated the Eastern Conference Championship winners, 3-0, at the Tennessee Avenue Soccer Complex in Ocean City, New Jersey. Players, as well as Head Coach Tommy Wheeldon Jr., were ecstatic following the final whistle.

“It’s huge,” Ajeej Sarkaria, who scored the first goal of the game, said following the match. “Calgary Foothills brought me into their family, and now we’re going to the championship, so let’s get a trophy back for Tommy.”

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After receiving a ball from PDL Top Prospect Dominic Russo, Sarkaria made a nifty move inside the box, leaving two defenders in his wake before slotting a shot into the bottom-left corner. The goal served as a turning point in the game, and Foothills FC never looked back.

“I saw the defender cheating, so I just cut him and slipped it into the corner,” Sarkaria said. “I think in the first half, the Nor’easters were doing well defending against us. In the second half after we got that first goal, we started flowing and then we got our passing going. I thought, second half, we were playing brilliantly.”

Not long after Sarkaria’s opener, Kyle Jones scored a sublime free kick to push the advantage to 2-0 for the road team.

“I just heard, ‘hit the net,’ from the sidelines, and I figured I’d better hit it then,” Kyle Jones said following the match.

Minutes before the final whistle, which secured Foothills FC’s spot in Saturday’s PDL Championship, Nico Pasquotti netted his first goal of the PDL Playoffs.

“I scored in the second game [of the regular season], so it was finally a time coming,” Pasquotti said. “My parents came down to watch, so it was huge. Sometimes when they come down, I’ve got to try and score to make them proud.”

Foothills FC will play the Central Conference Champions, Michigan Bucks, in the PDL Championship at 7:30 p.m. ET from the Ultimate Soccer Arenas on Saturday. The Bucks will be no easy task for Foothills FC, but the club expects nothing less at this stage of the PDL Playoffs.

“It’s huge – not only for just our club, but I think it’s great for our city,” Wheeldon said. “We knew coming down here we had a tough goal with one of the best attack forces in the whole of the PDL. I thought, tactically, we did all right. The boys stuck to the game plan. We modified a few things at halftime, and we came out in the second half and were clinical. We were clinical in keeping the clean sheet and in attack, so I think we achieved our objective. I’m so proud of them, so proud of the job they’ve done, so proud of the continuing to prove people wrong.”

“If you would have said that this team would be in the final at the start of the year, that we would be in the national final, no one would have thought that," Pasquotti said. "We have a special group of guys, and it’s immense.

“We’re always going to be underdogs. We’re from Canada. No one is going to count us in, so we’ve got to prove everyone wrong.”