Kodiaks lose a tough one
MEN’S SOCCER TEAM ELIMINATED IN ACAC QUARTER-FINAL
A disappointing loss has ended the Lethbridge College Kodiaks men’s soccer team’s season much earlier than they anticipated.
In a marathon match, the Kodiaks were defeated 4-3 in a shootout by the Concordia Thunder during the Alberta Colleges Athletic Conference quarter-finals Friday afternoon in Sherwood Park.
The Kodiaks led 3-1 late, but the Thunder rallied with a pair of goals to deadlock the game at 3-3 after regulation.
The teams then went deep into the shootout before the Thunder won in the seventh round to stun the Kodiaks, ranked second in the South.
“It was tied 4-4 after the first five,” said Kodiaks head coach Sean Carey. “Both teams missed one penalty (kick) in the first five. Both teams scored in (round) six and we missed the seventh and they scored on their seventh.”
In regulation time, both teams enjoyed ample chances and turned that into three goals each.
But two of the Thunder’s came late with the Kodiaks looking poised to snag the win and move onto the semifinals.
“We were up 3-1 with eight minutes to go, so we should have finished the game off,” said Carey. “We had a couple of errors in our defence in the last 10 minutes of the game, which allowed Concordia to tie it up. It’s a very disappointing way to go out when you feel like you’re in control of the game. You get the third goal with eight minutes and you feel like you’re in control in at that point.
“Kudos to Concordia, too. They didn’t give up and kept coming at us. Sometimes you have to be lucky to be good. They got a couple bounces that went their way. Unfortunately, we didn’t get that bounce. At the end of the day we end up going to the shootout and it’s just a 50-50 coin toss.”
The Kodiaks went 6-1-3 in the regular season — including a 4-0 win over firstplace SAIT Trojans on the second-last day of the season — to earn second place in the South.
But the season with just one regulation loss didn’t continue into provincials and ultimately nationals, the team’s goal.
“I think with the quality of guys we had we were expecting to go further than this,” said Carey. “We really believe we were going to make the last game of provincials and progress to nationals. That was our goal this year and we’ve fallen short. I think you can say with the talent we had expectations and I feel we didn’t fulfill our potential this year. A lot of guys are very disheartened right now and it was a quiet bus ride home.
“We needed our big players to step up in a game like today and it was a tough one. They found it hard going out there. We were on a turf field and we very rarely play on turf and then you go to playoffs and you’re on turf. It’s an adaption.”