LFC men settle for a draw with the Dinosaurs
On occastion this season, Lethbridge Football Club head coach Bruce Primeau has seen his club struggle through five-minutes lapses late in games.
As they hosted the Calgary Dinosaurs during Alberta Major Soccer League play Saturday afternoon, the LFC had that hiccup right out of the gate and though they were able to recover in the final 89 minutes, it wasn’t enough to nudge the LFC into the win column as the teams battled to a 2-2 tie at the Servus Sport Centre.
With the draw, the LFC sits at 3-2-4 and in a tie for fourth with the Edmonton Green & Gold in what is shaping up to be a tight race for top spot as the teams head down the regular season stretch.
“It’s funny because we’ve saved our worst five minutes for last and yesterday we opened with our worst five minutes, “said Primeau, whose team got goals from Andrew Primeau and Andrew Southern in the tie. “They had already scored 20 seconds in. They touched the ball once and it went in the net.
“But the good point in that was we had 89 minutes and 40 seconds to deal with it. We had too many giveaways, 15plus giveaways in 20 minutes resulted in being down 2-0.”
Andrew Primeau got Lethbridge on the board before the first half was up.
The LFC knotted things up a little over halfway through the second half, but despite a furious late push weren’t able to snag the go-ahead goal.
“Andrew got his right before the half that put us down 2-1 and we figured if you get one, you get three,” said Primeau. “We came out in the second half strong. The second one came about 25 minutes in. It was literally a 60-yard throw-in from Andrew Primeau over everybody and Andrew Southern took in down and buried it.”
But the LFC were unable to bury the winner.
“When they’ve got eight defending it’s tough to get through,” said Primeau. “We did tons of great stuff. I’ve been in those games before where we outshoot an opponent 40-5 and lost 2-1. This was kind of the same deal. We outchanced our opponents, it was something like 22-7. (We had) two goal posts and a crossbar. We threw everything at them. It wasn’t that their goalie played spectacular, it wasn’t anything. It was just it didn’t go in.”
The LFC now take it to the road for the next three weeks.
They’re in Edmonton next Saturday and Sunday to face the Green & Gold and Edmonton Drillers and head to Calgary July 29 to take on the Calgary Villains Elite FC.
Lethbridge wraps up the regular season July 30 at home against the Calgary Callies.
“We have our most important four games coming up,” said Primeau. “We have the Green And Gold. We have the Drillers, who are just (two points) below us and Villains, who are barely just above us (four points) and the Callies, who are six points above us. In the next four games, I told the team we’re going to have to pull 10 or 11 points out of the next four games.
“As a young group we continue to make that one mistake. As a group they’re gaining confidence. That one mistake isn’t costing us three points, we’re still getting a point out of it. They’re continuing to build week-in and week-out on everything we do.”