VICTORIA – The Trinity Western Spartans men's soccer team opened the Canada West season with a 3-0 loss to the University of Victoria Vikes Friday night at Centennial Stadium in Victoria, B.C.
Spartans third year keeper
Sebastian Colyn (Langley, B.C.) made 11 saves in the loss, while Victoria's Jas Lally made six saves to earn the victory for the Vikes.
The Vikes opened the scoring in the 21
st minute when Victoria's Nick Park converted a pass from Isaac Koch to give the Vikes the early 1-0 lead
The Spartans best scoring chance came in the 31
st minute of the opening frame. TWU rookie midfielder
Tristan Torresan (North Vancouver, B.C.) sent a ball off of the top right post from outside the top of the penalty area. Then Spartans fifth year forward Cody Franson (Lynden, WA) jumped on the rebound and put a shot off of the left post from the just outside the top of the six. But the ball went off of the post and along the Victoria goal line before being smothered by Victoria keeper Jas Lally.
The Vikes would finish the opening 45 with a 9-7 edge in shots and a 1-0 lead on the scoreboard.
Victoria's Ian Whibley made it 2-0 for the Vikes in the 59
th minute off a feed from Koch. The Vikes sealed the win three minutes later, 62
nd, when Whibley got his second goal of the night and Koch got his third assist of the evening.
Victoria would finish the evening outshooting Trinity Western 20-14 and 14-6 in shots on goal. The Spartans had a 7-4 edge in corner kicks.
QUOTABLE
TWU Head Coach Mike Shearon
"We have a few injuries to some veteran players so we had to start a younger group tonight. But in the end I thought we did enough to have a better result tonight. But at the same time UVIC made us pay for the mistakes that we made."
"A lot of errors that we made tonight I think are fixable, but we need to pick things up and we need to get better. This league is unforgiving and UVIC showed us that tonight."
NOTABLE
• The match was delayed 10 minutes in the second half due to a TWU injury
• TWU has not lost to Victoria since September 18, 2015. When the Spartans lost 2-1 in the Canada West semi-final at Thunderbird Stadium in Vancouver.
• The Spartans swept the season series 2-0 last year. Winning 2-1 in Victoria and 7-1 at home in Langley, B.C.
UP NEXT
The Spartans will return to the mainland for a day off, before heading to Vancouver to take on the UBC Thunderbirds on Sunday after noon. Match time is scheduled for 2 p.m. at Thunderbird Stadium.
The Spartans home-opening weekend is Sept. 6-7, when they host Thompson Rivers and UBC Okanagan. Kickoff for both matches is at 7:15 p.m. at TWU's Chase Office Field.
About Spartan Athletics
As official members of U SPORTS, the Spartans currently compete in 11 sports in the Canada West conference, including women's and men's soccer, volleyball, basketball, cross country and track & field, as well as women's rugby sevens. TWU also competes in the British Columbia Intercollegiate Hockey League (BCIHL) in men's hockey and as an independent team in men's rugby. The men's and women's hockey programs will begin playing in Canada West and U SPORTS in 2020-21. Since TWU entered U SPORTS in 1999, the Spartans have won 12 U SPORTS team championships and 27 Canada West team championships and two BCIHL championships.
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