After a hard-fought game last night at Hillside Stadium, the men’s WolfPack soccer team emerged victorious over the UFV Cascades, picking up an impressive 2-0 win.
Having been only one win away from securing the final playoff slot in the Pacific division, the men’s team was determined in their quest for victory. During the first few minutes of play, the hungry ‘Pack sought to ferociously control the field, attempting to set the tone for the rest of the night. Facing strong offense from the home team, cracks in the Cascades strategy began to form. Within the first 25 minutes of play, the Cascades Bhagvir Sidhu was ejected from the game for accumulating two yellow cards. Ten minutes later, Sidhu’s ejection was followed up with another when teammate Adam Szymanski received a straight red card.
“The cards happened because we were using our pace to go at them,” said WolfPack head coach John Antulov in a post-game press release. “We’ve been trying to tell our guys that we have so much speed on the outside that we need to use that pace and that’s what happened on the first two yellows. We used our pace to go at players and then just kept it going and going.”
Even with a two-man advantage on the field the ‘Pack knew they could not afford to lose focus. Despite being at a disadvantage, the Cascades fought back, with UFV goalie Jackson Cowx fending off all attacks as the game went into the halftime break, scoreless.
The first goal of the night came during the 63rd minute when defender Mikkel Rosenlund scored for the pack with an assist from team captain, Patrick Izett. Later in the night, fifth-year Dylan Hooper would capitalize on a rebound by fellow pack member Jonathan Rinaldi, burying the ball in the net to cement the team’s victory.
“I like the fact that we didn’t take our foot off the gas pedal, we created plenty of scoring opportunities and we missed a couple clear chances but we got the two at the end there and got the result so I’m super happy,” Antulov said.
With this win, TRU improved its standings to 3-5-1, earning the last remaining playoff spot in the Pacific Division.
“We still have a ways to go but at least we are seeing signs of what we can do and at the end of the day we just have to keep that going,” said Antulov. “We aren’t out of the woods yet; we have to keep rolling and rolling to try and get results.”
TRU’s next game will be tonight, when the Wolfpack squares off against the Trinity Western Spartans inside Hillside Stadium at 4 p.m.