Fraser Valley (Jordie Arthur) – Men’s Soccer: Shorthanded Cascades fight through adversity, but fall in home opener to visiting Wolfpack
The University of the Fraser Valley men’s soccer team fell 1-0 in their season opening game against the Thompson Rivers University Wolfpack on Friday night at Rotary Stadium in Abbotsford.
With the win, TRU sees their record improve to 3-0 while the Cascades go to 0-1 in Canada West action.
Manpal Brar almost gave the hosts a dream start, as Mikael Mainella dispossessed a TRU defender and sent his teammate in alone, but Wolfpack goalkeeper Jackson Gardner came sliding out to turn away the chance.
Ten minutes later, TRU’s Patrick Izett beat Cascades keeper Jackson Cowx with a high shot, but saw it turned away by the crossbar.
The Wolfpack would finally get their breakthrough just before halftime, as a Mikkel Rosenlund cross found its way to the feet of Ryan Lewis, and he made no mistake burying the shot past Cowx.
The teams traded chances in the second half, but neither team would find a breakthrough.
UFV head coach Tom Lowndes had praise for both teams post game.
“It’s obviously a big challenge in game one as they had two great results last weekend, so they are flying high.” Lowndes said, “They’ve already punched their ticket to nationals (as hosts), so they know what’s at stake for them and I thought we competed really well.”
“The one time they have broken us down they scored off it. That’s the frustrating part. If you make mistakes in this league, you get punished. But in that first half for 44 and a half minutes we were excellent.”
The Cascades, who were already struggling with injuries to start the year, encountered even more bad luck just before the match as a motor vehicle accident near the pitch sidelined a pair of players.
“It’s been a bit of a rough week” explained Lowndes, “we had three senior players go down with injuries, and on the way here today we have two players and an assistant coach in a car wreck before the game even started.”
“We had all the excuses in the world to come out flat tonight and I thought we were excellent.” Lowndes said “We had to change the starting lineup and add people to the roster because two guys that were in the accident can’t play — I thought we showed maturity when we finished the game with five first-years on the field — so I’m nothing but proud of my team tonight.”
TRU will look to keep their winning streak alive when they visit the Trinity Western Spartans on Saturday, while the Cascades will try to get in the win column on Sunday when they host the UBC Okanagan Heat at Rotary Stadium (1pm kickoff, canadawest.tv).
Lowndes and his squad are already looking forward to getting back on the field for that battle with UBCO.
“We said at the start that this game wasn’t going to make or break our season. We have 14 games left and we’ll regroup, we’ll bounce back, and we’ll go again on Sunday.”
