The End of the Reserve League

Back in November, when Don Garber announced the smaller roster sizes, and thus the elimination of the reserve league, I personally was disappointed, as now instead of the Wizards reserve players getting games against other professional players, those players will now have to get basically all their games from local college teams or PDL teams, not exactly the best way to develop talent.

Anyways, with the reserve league gone, here are a few highlights of the four years of the Wizards reserve team, the Swope Park Rangers.

The leader in basically every single offensive category for the reserve team, is former Wizard Ryan Pore. Pore appeared in 37 reserve league games (31 starts), 7 more than second place Ryan Raybould (1 more start). Pore also finished with the most minutes played, 2635, 32 more than Raybould. He was by far the top goal scorer with 29 and the top assist man with 10. While those two are at the high end of minutes, the least amount of minutes played by an actual Wizards player, was Nick Garcia, who played only 10 minutes with the reserves.

Ten players appeared in 20 or more reserve league games during it's four seasons. Pore and Raybould the only two to top 30 games, then you had Lance Watson (28), Eric Kronberg (26), Will John (24), Brian Roberts (23), Tyson Wahl (23), Michael Kraus (23), Will Hesmer (20), Ryan McMahen (20).

Other then Pore, only 1 player hit double digits in goals, Yura Movsisyan who scored 13. The next highest was Ivan Tujillo with 6, all this year, and Watson with 5. The player with the second most assists to Pore was Kraus with 6 assists, followed by John and Alex Zotinca with 5, and Raybould and Jermaine Hue with 4.

The Rangers finished with a record of 26 wins, 13 losses, and 8 ties in that 4 year span, scoring 98 goals while giving up 66. Here is the Rangers record against each of the teams they played. Even with that decent record over the four years, the reserves never won the reserve league title.

Toronto FC - 2-0
Houston - 2-0
Red Bulls/Metrostars - 4-0-1
LA - 3-0-1
Chicago - 4-1-1
DC - 4-2
FC Dallas - 2-1
New England - 3-2-1
San Jose - 0-0-2
Real Salt Lake - 0-0-1
Columbus - 1-2-1
Chivas - 1-3
Colorado - 0-2

Hopefully the reserve league makes a return, but until then, this is the way the stats will end for the league.