Capers head to finals
Men’s, women’s teams advance to AUS soccer finals
Both Capers soccer teams will be shooting for Atlantic university supremacy following semifinal wins on Friday.
The Cape Breton University men’s team lived up to its top 10 national ranking with a convincing 4-0 win over the University of Prince Edward Island Panthers to advance to the AUS final in Wolfville, while the CBU women held on for a 1-0 victory over the Memorial Sea-Hawks in Moncton to book their ticket to the title match.
In the men’s game, the Capers spent most of the first half of the game on the attack, but had to wait until the 34th minute before captain Sandro Rajkovic, a fivetime AUS all-star playing in his final season, put CBU ahead after the ball came to him in the box following a corner kick and header.
Defender Stuart Heath then scored the first of his two goals just before halftime on a pass from recently crowned AUS most valuable player Justin Maheu, who also captured the award in 2014.
The second half played out much as the first did in that the Capers continued to dominate and doubled their lead while holding the Panthers off the score sheet. Heath scored his second in the 58th minute, while Nico Gibbons finished off the scoring in the 76th minute.
All-star keeper Scott Shewfelt recorded the clean sheet for the Capers.
Cape Breton will play the second-seeded University of New Brunswick, after UNB knocked off host Acadia Axemen 1-0. The title match takes place Sunday at 2 p.m. at the Raymond Field in Wolfville. The Capers beat the Red Devils 5-1 in the seasonopening match on Sept 12 at the CBU field. The two teams have not met since then.
The winner will become the Atlantic conference representative at the 2015 CIS championship that will be hosted by Toronto’s York University, Nov. 12-15.
Meanwhile, the Caper women advanced to their championship match as Kara MacKinnon’s 52nd minute goals stood up as the winner in CBU’s match against Memorial.
Lysianne Trottier picked up the shutout as she turned aside all six Sea-Hawk shots that found the target.
The Capers will play the Acadia Axewomen for the AUS women’s crown on Sunday at 2 p.m. at the Moncton Stadium. Acadia advanced to the title match after a solid 3-0 win over the St. Francis Xavier X-Women.
The winner will represent the Atlantic conference at the 2015 CIS women’s championship in Vancouver, Nov. 12-15.