In a near symmetrical way, the Queen City Football Club concluded its 2008 National Premier Soccer League season in the same fashion it started it in as it lost at the hands of a late goal.

After leading at halftime 2-1, City was unable to hold onto to its advantage and fell to the Lancaster Inferno on Sunday afternoon at All-High Stadium, 3-2.

"This could be are most disheartening loss because I thought clearly we were the better team and it came down to a lack of discipline and defensive mistakes," said Queen City head coach Tom Cordaro.

City controlled the ball throughout most of the beginning of the first half and opened up the scoring in the 10th minute of the game when defender Jeremy Watson scored on a header off of a corner kick.

Lancaster(3-2-2) responded 11 minutes later when Derek Sipe put the ball past City goalkeeper Emillio Colletta to tie things up, 1-1. But City (1-5-4) would retake the lead in the 38th minute on a free kick from midfielder Chris Lofgren to go up by one.

The second half proved to be less fruitful for City. Lancaster controlled the bulk of the period, having multiple chances to score while City racked up a pair of yellow cards. The Inferno eventually connected on one of its opportunities off a shot from Kemal Nuspahie to tie things up in the 60th minute of action.

"We just kept pressing," said Inferno head coach Steve Klein. "I thought we did better with possession in the second half and the game kind of opened up from there."

The game looked destined to be City's fifth draw of the season, but this failed to occur when Nuspahie scored again in the 86th minute to give Lancaster the only lead of the game it would need to secure victory.

The loss concludes the season for City, who won't be able to defend its 2007 NPSL Eastern Conference Championship as it failed to qualify for the playoffs.

"These were the (players) dedicated enough to be here and I really appreciated it," Cordero said. "They're all a good group of kids. They are all good to work with."

Click here to read a blog entry about David Jarka's perspective playing in the pre-game Western New York Media vs. Queen City FC Staff soccer match.