Unhappy about being shutout 2-0 on the road the previous week against Lakehill United FC2, Powell River Villa took it out on Vantreights FC2 with a well deserved 1-0 victory at Timberlane Park on Sunday, September 27.
Under bright, blue skies and virtually no wind, the game started on the perfect pitch with the two teams pushing each other back and forth.
Villa had a slight edge in play and had a couple of good chances to score, including when striker Rick Rushton took a shot from close range on the short side. Midfielder Rob Devlin was also foiled from the 18-yard line.
Villa kept moving the ball crisply and at 19 minutes Rushton knocked it to midfielder Nick v’ant Schip who slid it over to Brandon Knox, but his hard shot narrowly missed the net.
After 20 minutes it was clear that Rushton was the go-to guy for Villa and he started to get some extra attention from Vantreights.
Midway through the half he made a move on his check, but was taken down hard and his assailant was issued a yellow card.
The resulting free kick from 30 yards sailed over the crowd in front of the net where Rushton leapt to get his head on it, but narrowly missed over the crossbar.
Ruston got one more chance at the 38-minute mark when Daniel Paul found him in front, but Vantreights’ keeper was in position to make the save.
It was a hard-fought opening half on both sides of the ball. The tight match was a test of conditioning and down to a matter of which team wanted it the most.
The hard tackling game continued in the second half without any shots from either side, until Villa finally broke through on the scoresheet.
Rushton had the ball wide when he was loudly encouraged by his charging mates to send it in.
He lobbed in a beautiful cross that perfectly connected with a wave of red jerseys cascading towards the Vantreights goal.
“Honestly, I just tried to put it on the penalty spot,” smiled Rushton. “I saw bodies going in and you try to put a hard dipping ball in. That’s the area where the goalie can’t quite come out and get it, but he’s also kind of in a no man’s land.”
Rushton had a couple of targets to hit, but one big one was Kurtis Dennison who was so close together with Knox they could have been wearing the same jersey.
“Ricky swung it in and Kurtis and I were side by side,” smiled Knox, “and I was a little ahead, but Kurtis just plunked it with his chest and it went in.”
Dennison, who recently signed on with Villa, was one of a bunch of players who were moving towards the Vantreights net.
“We wanted to score a goal,” said Dennison, “and I actually scored it with my chest from about the six-yard box. We were all screaming away at [Rushton] to just get it in the box.”
It was as simple as that, but Dennison acknowledged “it was a tough game, for sure, and they are a solid team but we came out with the win, which is nice.”
As would be expected, the pace and physicality picked up considerably from there and goalkeeper Matt Liknes had a few collisions with hard-charging Vantreights players trying hard to even the score.
From Dennison’s goal at the 62-minute mark, the whole Villa team dug in to protect the lead and held on for a well-deserved 1-0 shutout.
“It was a tight game,” admitted Knox. “There really wasn’t a lot of room out there.”
Jamie Zroback, who was standing in for Chris McDonough as coach, agreed and spoke of the strategy to break the 0-0 tie.
“We had some talk at half that we needed to push forward a little more to take advantage of our opportunities,” said Zroback. “We switched Kurtis, who was our centre, back with Rob Devlin for a little more speed and offence, and Rob was having a great game, but Kurtis is a new player we want to try out in different spots.”
Zroback credited Vantreights after the game, saying the were a good team. “It’s great that we could get the 1-0 result.”
With their first win under their belt, Villa hits the road this weekend to take on the Sooke Loggers on Saturday, October 3 at 6 pm.
