NEWS RELEASES

Comments by BILL MERRIMAN

VIU Men’s Soccer Team         Exhib games in Vancouver                Aug 27 & 28, 2009

Vanc Isl University   3       University Fraser Valley   1

The game against UFV was a good test for us, we have been training  very hard this pre-season and it was a great opportunity to see how we were shaping up on the pitch.  UFV scored early on a P.K. in the first 4 minutes of the game.  But I was pleased with our team’s response the way we kept our composure and played our game.  Our 4th year Dean Thorsell picked up the team and led with some great defensive tackles and was rewarded with a great goal in the 20th minute. We came out flying after the kick off with a flurry of shots and transfer Davis Stupich scored our second goal to complete a great spell of soccer.  Then shortly after 1st year Romain martin was given a P.K. for beating 3 players to get into the box only stopped by a hand ball. Top pre season goal scorer Aki stepped up and made no mistake of putting the ball in the back of the net.  The 2nd half started very physical full of personal battles but again I was glad to see our teams discipline and composure. Playing with a lead is something we need to work on as well as our players coming off the bench contributing without missing a beat and I saw improvements in both areas this game.  Our 1st year keeper Rob Cochrane was very strong in our net for the entire game as well as his backline lead by Dean Thorsell, 1st year Danny Cato and 2nd year Ben Leggett.

Vanc Isl University  3     Total Soccer Systems  1

 The game against TSS was a completely different game than our UFV game. The TSS club was a young fast and very skilful team full of confidence coming off a win over UBC and a BC Championship Final 6-0 win. The start of the game goal keeper Rob Cochrane had to come up with some big saves to keep us in it .We were able to make a couple on field adjustments and start to balance out the game as we were under some pressure to start. We came back into the game after some great defensive battles won by 2nd year Ben Leggett lifting the team into the offensive third. The game had changed and Romain Martin finished off a great free kick from Aki to put us up one nothing with a much needed goal before half. The second half we came out and responded well again to some adjustments made during the break.  Substitute Yoshi Wantanabe came on and put Martin through on a break away to notch his second of the match. After this much of the play was in the middle of the park going both ways for a while and TSS systems scored to put the game back within one.  But our players responded and again off of an Aki free kick to Romain Martin flicking the ball onto Davis Stupich who finished the ball to end the game and complete the weekend.

Overall I was very pleased with the weekend two good results and I believe our players are ready for the start of the season. ur top players along with center back Tyler Merriman