Powell River Villa managed to eke out a 2-2 tie against Lakehill Danger Police 3A on Saturday, December 7 in Victoria.
It made the trip with a skeleton crew after losing key players Ben Elliot, Dean Thorsell and Robert Oele to card suspensions.
Work commitments for Rob Devlin kept another regular at home leaving 11 youngsters available for the match against the mid-table opposition.
“We were missing some leadership and experience,” explained coach Chris McDonough, “but we did have a lot of fit, young guys who have played well for us this year. We went with the same formation we’ve been playing all year and tried to get some guys who were playing another position to step up a little bit.”
Villa got off to a slow start and Lakehill took advantage of a handball call in the Villa box at the 15-minute mark.
Sam Montgomery maintained the ball hit his shoulder but the call was made and Lakehill scored on a low shot to the right corner with Matt Liknes guessing to his left.
Villa responded positively to the goal with a strong push but was unable to capitalize on a couple of good scoring chances by Jake Kenmuir and Brody Harry.
At the half, down 1-0, players were urged to keep their energy up and earn some good scoring chances with the extra effort.
They were finally rewarded when Billy Bagiopoulos and Harry, on a nice give and go, resulted in Harry’s low shot finding the corner to tie the game 1-1.
Villa maintained the pressure with 20 minutes to go but Lakehill did manage to capitalize on another dubious call.
With 10 minutes remaining a striker went one on one with the bigger Montgomery and went to the ground following the collision.
Much to the dismay of Villa another penalty kick was awarded to Lakehill and it scored the 2-1 goal with a shot into the bottom corner.
With nothing to lose, Villa brought everyone forward in the last 10 minutes and narrowly missed tying the game on numerous occasions.
Nick van’t Schip and Kenmuir both came very close but nothing went in until the very end of the game.
Curtis McMillan dribbled into the box where he was mugged by a Lakehill defender and got the call for a penalty kick.
Jordan Peters calmly stepped up with virtually seconds left to stroke the shot into the left corner of the net for the 2-2 final.
“We scored the only goal in open play so I thought we deserved a little better,” said McDonough. “Coming back twice from a goal down showed a bit of character for the young team we had and I’ll take the tie on the road, I guess.”
Villa now has a break from league action until January 12 and looking ahead McDonough said, “Our schedule is pretty favourable. Our next two games are at home and we have FC Sagres, the league leader, at home as well so that’s a big advantage for us.”
Villa is positioned to make a run in the second half and that sits well with the coach. “We’ve given ourselves a chance to be in the top few teams here and 7-3-2 is not a bad record. With the team we’ve put together this year I’m pretty happy with the way we’ve played and where we’re sitting.”
