Coach Chris McDonough expressed his concerns last week about this week’s match between Powell River Villa and Fernwood Town FC and unfortunately he was dead on.
Fernwood Town came to Cranberry Field Sunday, December 7, with a full squad of 15 players complete with fans and struck for two early goals to defeat Villa 2-1.
The crisp weather and soft pitch conditions didn’t slow down the visitors and they had the division leaders on its heels from the get-go.
They used a quick touch game and speed to give Villa defenders fits early and on one of the rushes drew a penalty kick when Trevor Harry was called for a hard tackle.
Villa keeper, Matt Liknes, gave the shooter a good look at the left side and the marksman blasted the ball on that side low and hard off the back post to go up 1-0 after eight minutes.
Villa looked like the team with bus legs as Fernwood Town kept coming and went up 2-0 when a forward went around Daniel Paul and, from a very sharp angle, beat Liknes to the far post at 20 minutes.
Finally, that second goal seemed to wake up the home team and for the next 20 minutes it matched Fernwood’s intensity to get back in the game.
Villa gradually started to take control later in the half and after some pressure Boseung Kwan, from 18 yards, hesitated to get a better look and then sent a harmless looking ball along the ground through a crowd to the net.
It looked as though the keeper had it in his sights but the ball squirted underneath him and rolled slowly into the goal at 34 minutes.
Fernwood Town was not to be caught sitting back on the lead and on another rush Liknes came out of his net and aggressively cleared a ball and creamed a forward to receive a yellow card from the referee at 41 minutes.
The half-time break gave Villa players a chance to collect themselves and they started the second with much more purpose.
Brody Harry made a nice cross to Daniel Harry but his shot went just wide of the net in the opening minute.
Dean Thorsell drove a shot at the net from 30 yards but the keeper just tipped it high and off the bar five minutes later.
With 20 minutes gone in the half Kye Taylor, who had missed a number of games due to injury, came in and that seemed to lift Villa’s spirits.
At 27 minutes of the second half, Villa got a scare when a harmless shot to Liknes hit a bump and popped over his shoulder to roll toward the goal.
He recovered and scrambled back to knock it off the goal line and out of bounds to keep the game 2-1.
Most of the game was played in the Fernwood Town end, however, and Villa was shooting from everywhere.
On one rush Taylor sped by the last defender and crossed the ball to Billy Bagiopoulos who was racing toward the net but the usually reliable forward missed on his shot from very close range.
Curtis McMillan, however, looked skyward a couple of times when he was set up directly in front of the goal and missed two excellent opportunities from very close range.
One of them had him maybe inside five yards from the goal line and somehow he lifted the ball high over the crossbar.
It was just one of those days, but credit goes to the effort and drive of Villa who did everything but find the equalizer before time expired.
Credit also goes to Fernwood Town FC who put in a great effort and fully deserved its sixth win to hand Villa its first loss of the season.
“It was a lot of fun,” said Fernwood defender Paul Van Dam-Bates. “Half of us came up to Courtenay last night and had a good night and made a weekend of it. These guys played so clean,” he said of Villa, “and they’re the most fun to play in the league.”
McDonough said, “We’ve had this one circled for a while but as everyone can see from today they are probably one of the best teams in the league. We [were] caught napping a bit in the first half on a couple of goals, but we sorted it out later and in the second we played well but we dug ourselves a hole we couldn’t get out of.”
It’s the end of one streak but a good chance to start another and Villa will travel to meet Cordova Bay Red Barn Bobcats in a 6 pm game on Saturday, December 13.
