After an extremely successful campaign last year in Division 3B Villa was promoted and is now looking forward to the stiffer competition of Division 2.
They topped the table with a 13-2-1 record and at the Vancouver Island Soccer League (VISL) annual awards took home the 3B Division Cup, VISL Team of the Year (all divisions) and Kye Taylor was honoured with the most valuable player award.
By virtue of their record, they drew top seed in provincial cup play but after a bye, lost to Alberni Valley 1-0 in their first match. Alberni was a team like Villa—they had the horses but due to player work commitments throughout the regular season had difficulty, especially on the road, putting a starting line-up together.
Through the cup run, however, Villa pulled together and advanced all the way to the final before falling 3-0 to Guildford FC from the Vancouver Metro Soccer League.
Villa’s success was a coordinated effort by coach Chris McDonough to blend youth and experience and add a complement of foreign students from Camber College.
Just as the student’s presence added immensely to the product on the field in the first half of the season, so too did their absence in the second half and the finals.
“We were fortunate to pick up some players like Bo Kwan, Jorge Martinez Reyes, Miguel Gonzales and Yuto Okiyama,” McDonough said, “but I think we’ve been able to fill those holes and possibly be even better this year.”
“There are a couple of kids from Camber again this year but we’ve picked up some local guys and former players who will step in right away.”
“Brandon Knox is a former Villa player who will help a lot,” he said, “and Ben Payne, who played on Bruno Cristante’s North Island Riptide team is a local kid who will play for us to start the season.”
“He’ll be with us until he leaves for England,” added McDonough, “where he’ll be playing with Oxford City Academy team which is a semi-pro soccer club.”
“That’s pretty exciting for both him and our team but he will leave sometime near the end of October.”
Missing from the line-up is Billy Bagiopoulos who headed off to Nanaimo and possibly Brody Harry who is attending Vancouver Island University and probably on their team.
“We didn’t really lose a lot from last year,” McDonough said, “so we have pretty much the same group I think.”
“We’ve added a couple of guys and some have gotten older so we’ll get some growth there from experience.”
Villa’s promotion to Division 2 means tougher competition from the other nine teams and McDonough, after a look at the list, had some early opinions.
“With Cowichan, Campbell River and Nanaimo in there,” he said, “that’s great for us as it is three day trips.”
“It’s good to see some north island teams back and we’ll have a good rivalry with those three this year.”
“We’ve been out of the division for three years,” McDonough added, “but I imagine all the teams will be strong and we probably won’t have any easy games, like last year.”
Villa is looking forward to returning to Timberlane for the year after the city has reconditioned the pitch.
“Last year they reseeded the field,” he said, “and it looks really good, as does the renovation work the city has done on the clubhouse.”
The season home-opener is against Cowichan FC2 on Sunday, September 13 at 1:30 pm at Timberlane where season tickets will be on sale and, after the game, fans can join Villa players at the re-opened clubhouse.
