Baltimore Blast adds six players to 2009-10 roster

Baltimore Blast President and General Manager Kevin Healey announced today that the team has signed six players for the upcoming 2009-10 season, including forward Lucio Gonzaga who won a championship with the Blast in 2008, and forward Rod Dyachenko and defender Michael Dello-Russo who played in Major League Soccer.  Forwards Max Ferdinand and Adriano Dos Santos and defender Logan Alexander will also join the defending champions when they take the field on November 13th to open the season at 1st Mariner Arena against the Rockford Rampage.
 
Gonzaga, who spent the 2008-09 season with the New Jersey Ironmen (XSL), was a member of Baltimore’s 2008 championship team.  He was the XSL Offensive Player of the Year and an All-XSL selection last season after recording 63 points in 19 games.  Gonzaga led the XSL with 23 goals and eight three-point goals and tied to lead the league with four game-winning goals.  During Baltimore’s 2008 playoff run he was the only Blast player to score a goal in each of the team’s five postseason games.
Dyachenko played 27 games for the Minnesota Thunder (USL) this summer, recording two goals and four assists for eight points.  Prior to joining the Thunder he spent most of three seasons with D.C. United after he was selected by United in the 2006 MLS SuperDraft.  A former UNLV standout, Dyachenko recorded 23 goals in four years for the Rebels and was named the 2005 Mountain Pacific Sports Federation Player of the Year following his senior season.  He also earned three consecutive All-MPSF First-Team honors.  Ferdinand, a member of the NPSL’s FC Reading Revolution, was a finalist in the Sueño MLS 2009, the nationally-televised player search.  Dos Santos, who came to Baltimore from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, previously played in the USL for Miami FC Blues.
 
Dello-Russo, a local product from Wilde Lake High School in Columbia, spent four seasons with MLS’s FC Dallas.  A fourth-round selection in the 2006 MLS SuperDraft, he joined the Austin Aztec (USL-1) in August and saw action in seven regular season games.  Dello-Russo played collegiate soccer at the University of Maryland and was the captain of the 2005 NCAA Championship Maryland Terrapins.  Alexander, who played at the University of Alabama-Birmingham from 2004 to 2008, has been a member of the Bermuda National Soccer Team at every level from Under-15 to the full National Team.  He also played for Bermuda\'s national teams for cricket and field hockey.