Fraser Valley/Vancouver (Jordie Authur) – Men’s soccer: Tale of two halves as Cascades outlasted by Thunderbirds
It was a tale of two halves on Saturday evening as the University of the Fraser Valley men’s soccer team dropped a 3-0 decision at Thunderbird Stadium to the UBC Thunderbirds.
Both teams exchanged chances in the first half, with UBC notching ten shots and UFV taking six of their own, but despite good looks from either side the squads went into the half scoreless.
The Thunderbirds carried the bulk of the play to start the second half, and they would capitalize on that in the 56th minute. A scramble in the Cascades box resulted in the ball falling to the foot of Logan Chung who blasted it into the back of the net.
Just five minutes later UBC Struck again. Nick Fussell, who had entered the game barely a minute earlier for Chung, found some space with the ball at the top of the box and doubled the lead for the hosts.
Fussell was once again clinical with his finishing from the top of the box in the 69th minute, as he nestled the ball neatly into the bottom corner to make it 3-0.
Cascades goalkeeper Jackson Cowx made a terrific diving save in the 82nd minute to preserve the score line, but UFV was unable to muster a consolation.
“I think in the first half we were pretty even. We matched them,” noted UFV head coach Tom Lowndes, “unfortunately, the legs kicked in a bit in the second half because we worked so hard, and when they score first they are always a tough team at home.”
“It’s not the result we wanted, but we’ll take some positives out of it and move forward into next week.”
Specifically Lowndes had plenty of praise for the individual play of his players on the night.
“We had some really good individual performances. Carson Muter, as a first-year player he’s only played one Canada West game, has gone in to play centre-back at UBC and I thought he was excellent. Manpal Brar and Mikael Mainella worked their socks off up front, and Charandeep Rangi was also really good in midfield with lots of energy.”
With the loss, UFV sees their record fall to 1-3-0 on the season, while UBC improves to 3-1-0.
The Cascades are back in action next Saturday for a visit to the University of Calgary (12:15 p.m. kickoff, canadawest.tv), while the Thunderbirds will also be heading to Calgary for a matchup with Mount Royal on Saturday.
