It was supposed to be a doubleheader for Powell River Villa last weekend but as any traveller will testify trying conditions and sailing cancellations forced some changes.
Villa was to play its first George Pearkes Challenge Cup game on Saturday and follow it up with a makeup game on Salt Spring on Sunday.
Upon boarding the ferry Saturday, crews advised the players of the blustery forecast and they came home early.
The one game they did play was on Saturday evening against SFFC Active Earth Engineering 3A.
Conditions were ridiculously windy, so much so that even the nets were moving around. Villa began against the wind and also faced one of the biggest teams in the league.
“It was clear early on they were going to take it to us physically,” said coach Chris McDonough. “There were some pretty nasty challenges and they were going after some of our smaller guys.”
Aggressive play paid off with an early goal for Active Earth to make it 1-0 when Villa was caught on its heels.
Five minutes later, Villa keeper Matt Liknes was kicked in the face going after a ball and he went down bleeding from his mouth.
After he dusted himself off, Villa seemed more determined than ever to fight back against the larger team.
A big skirmish happened at 20 minutes that involved all of the players on the pitch after Brody Harry was mugged and he retaliated.
The Active Earth player received a card for his trouble, however the official never really seemed to be in control of the situation.
Harry got his revenge when he and Jake Kenmuir combined on a nice passing play and he drilled a shot in to tie the game 1-1 at 30 minutes.
One of the biggest changes after the half was the wind which oddly enough switched right around to once again blow in the faces of the Villa players.
Despite the challenges, Villa played evenly with the Active Earth but couldn’t capitalize on a number of quality scoring chances.
Active Earth did, though, at the 80-minute mark when one player took a hard shot that went off Liknes and the rebound was tucked in.
The physicality of the game took its toll on Villa to where it finished the game with 10 men and couldn’t mount an attack to even the score.
“The guys were pretty beat up after,” said McDonough, “but they gave it everything they had and I was quite proud of them. They showed a lot of grit in probably the roughest game we’ve had all year and they really stood up to these guys.”
Villa won’t play this weekend while the ferries put things back together but the postponed regular season games will be played in March.
