Billed as an uphill battle, Powell River Villa faced Vancouver Island Soccer League’s division one’s fourth seed Nanaimo United FC 1 on Sunday afternoon at Timberlane Park.
Nanaimo has a record of nine wins, eight losses and a tie with a plus five goal ratio this year and it set the pace to gain the upper hand.
Most of the early play was within the Villa half of the pitch and pressure from Nanaimo quickly drew a free kick at 25 yards. The ball missed its mark to the right of Villa keeper Matt Liknes.
Nanaimo kept turning it on and eventually worked the ball through to a striker who took his time and slipped it by Liknes to his right at 12 minutes.
Villa’s Kye Taylor, who has been nursing a lower body injury, stopped play momentarily to remove the brace he wears on his leg, and he tried to play without it.
In the meantime, Villa had its first good run at 22 minutes when Sean Jenkins chased down a long pass but the defender got back to deflect the ball out for a corner. Nick van’t Schip sent it in but the ball was slightly too high for both Ben Elliott and Taylor who both came within a few inches of making contact.
Play went right down to Villa’s end of the pitch where a race for a loose ball ended with Liknes taking down a Nanaimo forward in the box.
Liknes guessed right on the penalty kick and dove to his right to get his hand on the shot and deflect it wide of the goal at 27 minutes.
The first 30 minutes was clearly dominated by Nanaimo. Thinking of the important relegation game against Nanaimo FC 2, Taylor was sidelined to prevent further injury to his leg.
Soon after there was a scramble in front of Liknes and Nanaimo got a foot on the ball to go up 2-0 at the half.
Liknes was called upon to make many more saves in the game and though he was very solid, he couldn’t make them all.
Another penalty kick, argued vehemently by Villa, was awarded and Liknes again made a great save but the rebound was put in before he could recover.
Not surprisingly, Villa continued to play hard throughout the 90 minutes but the young lineup couldn’t prevent Nanaimo from scoring one more time to make the final 4-0.
Villa has rallied the troops in recent Jackson Cup history and done very well, but this time coach Jamie Zroback said, “The young guys have earned a chance to get into this game. It was a good chance to reward them and they played hard today.”
On the removal of Taylor midway through the first half, he said, “It was a big blow when we knew Kye wasn’t 100 per cent, but we have to save him for that potential game that we have left.”
That brings up the situation Villa finds itself in with regard to relegation. “We need Nanaimo FC 2 to go beat Gorge [United 2] and then have a battle here on Timberlane,” said Zroback. “That’s what we’re hoping for.”
As of press time, the schedule had not been posted for either of those two games.
