Hellas FC braved wild weather and a disrupted BC Ferries schedule so that a battle for first place in division 3A of Vancouver Island Soccer League could be played at Timberlane Park on Sunday, September 29.
Despite being told the chances of being able to return to Vancouver Island later in the day were slim, Hellas made the trip over from Victoria and subsequently defeated Powell River Villa 2-0 under fierce weather conditions.
Villa started the game very aggressively and virtually owned the pitch for the first 15 minutes.
Coincidentally, the sun shone brightly during that time as well, but as the skies began to darken so did the game for Villa and its hardy fans.
After a couple of opening chances for Brody Harry, Jake Kenmuir and Nick van’t Schip, Hellas made a rare appearance in the Villa defensive zone.
A high ball came in to keeper Matt Liknes and he hollered for it but misjudged his leap and the ball floated high over his outstretched hands.
Waiting behind him, a Hellas forward merely got to the loose ball and tapped it into the defenceless goal at the 17-minute mark to take a 1-0 lead.
Stunned, Villa rallied to retake possession but seemed to lack a cohesive attack that yielded any good scoring chances.
The second half was similar to the first in that Villa couldn’t seem to capitalize on its hard work.
Again it controlled the ball but the more experienced Hellas squad picked its spots and scored the only goal on a free kick at 82 minutes.
A long ball to the far post was headed in by Hellas and that pretty much sealed the game and enabled it to claim first place in the division.
Playing so well for most of the game but losing 2-0 was tough for Villa as was demonstrated by its accumulation of yellow cards.
Kenmuir, Dean Thorsell and Jordan Peters were all shown yellow cards by referee Bob Bogoslowski during the game for acting out on their frustration.
Looking back on the game, coach Chris McDonough said, “We had a decent first half but they got a pretty lucky goal. I thought we dominated the first half, but the second half we didn’t come out the way I thought we could. They were the better team in the second half and it showed in the result.”
No doubt Hellas wasn’t about to waste the effort it had made to get to Powell River and, with the last two ferries of the day cancelled, the team did end up spending the night here. The delay was, perhaps, easier for the team to take with the 2-0 win and top status in the division.
“It’s a far distance to travel,” said coach Jim Koutougas, “and the division that we are in is very competitive so we always look forward to a great game. It’s easy for us to come up here with that in mind. I researched the weather before we came up and it was saying that we would be fine to get over but a bit of an unknown whether we could get back. But we wanted to get the game done and played and if we had to stay in Powell River overnight then so be it.”
This weekend Villa makes the crossing to play FC Sagres 3A on Saturday, October 5.
