David Hicks,
Tammer Byrne and the University of the Fraser Valley men's soccer team punched their tickets to the Canada West Final Four in heart-stopping fashion, outlasting the Saskatchewan Huskies in penalty kicks on Saturday evening in Saskatoon.
The two tames battled to a scoreless stalemate through 90 minutes of regulation, necessitating two 15-minute halves of extra time. Rookie striker
Andrew Peat gave the Cascades the lead in the 95th minute, but Sask's Nikolas Baikas scored from a thunderous volley in the 120th minute, mere moments from the final whistle, to send the game to PKs.
At that stage, UFV fifth-year keeper
David Hicks took over. The Cascades were well aware of his PK prowess – he'd turned aside two of three attempts from the penalty spot during the regular season. The Huskies found out the hard way, as Hicks stoned them on three of their four attempts.
On the other side,
Anthony Vega,
Parman Minhas and Cascades captain Byrne converted from the spot – Byrne's shot into the bottom right corner clinched a 3-1 win in the shootout for the visitors.
"I don't know, over the past couple weeks, how much more my heart can take," UFV head coach
Tom Lowndes said with a wry chuckle afterward. "But the boys were awesome tonight. They were immense. They were heroic in every sense of the word. We came to a very tough place to play, and they found a way to win.
"It would have been very easy for us to hang our heads after conceding a late, late, late equalizer, but they didn't. We got some great saves from
David Hicks, and we got the job done."
After 90 minutes of scoreless soccer, overtime brought both teams out their shells, with the Huskies and Cascades piling up the scoring opportunities. The breakthrough came from the foot of Peat. A great ball forward from
Gurmaan Jhaj found Peat in stride and he made no mistake in scoring the opening goal of the game.
The Huskies' deficit was compounded when they were reduced to ten men after a red card was issued to Kwame Opoku in the 105th minute.
Fraser Valley was able to keep the ball away from dangerous areas for much of the second half of overtime before Baikas's wonder-strike in the final minute of play. A long throw-in from Mason Ogoke was headed high into the air by a Cascades defender and Baikas was able to find some space and volley the ball from just inside the 18-yard box and into the top corner to ensure that the marathon game would have the most dramatic ending possible.
Hicks thoroughly dominated the penalty-kick portion of the evening, saving shots from Ogoke, Gabriel Buatois and Tyler Redl, with Baikas the lone Sask shooter to solve him. His counterpart Greg Buckley responded with a save on Peat, and benefitted from some good fortune as Jhaj sent his attempt over the crossbar. But Vega and
Parman Minhas were good on their attempts, setting the stage for Byrne to clinch the victory leading off the fifth round.
Byrne is a two-time Canada West all-star, but as a centre back, he's known more for his goal suppression than his scoring. Nevertheless, he stepped up and slotted it home like a veteran striker, setting off the UFV celebration.
"We asked the guys who wanted a pen, and Tammer was one of the first ones," Lowndes explained. "We sorted out the order, and he was there in fifth.
"Mike (Newton, Cascades assistant coach) and I couldn't watch – we turned away, looking into the stands, waiting to hear the boys' reaction. It was great to hear them cheer in the end."
And as for Hicks?
"I said to the boys (before the shootout), 'You know how good Hicks is at pens? I think three out of five wins it for us,'" Lowndes related. "He was immense tonight. He was excellent."
The UFV side advances to the Canada West Final Four at UBC, where they'll face the host Thunderbirds in the semifinals. The schedule has yet to be determined.
It's the third trip to the CW Final Four for the Cascades men's soccer program, with previous trips in 2013 and 2015 netting conference bronze medals.
The Cascades, coming off a 2017 season which saw them miss the playoffs for the first time in four seasons, were
voted No. 11 out of 13 teams in the Canada West coaches poll this fall . . . a fact Lowndes didn't let them forget. He laminated the preseason ranking and posted it on the wall of their locker room at MRC Sports Complex.
"The boys used the preseason rankings this year – we were picked to finish 11th out of 13 teams, and they took that personally," Lowndes said. "We've had one bad year, and suddenly we're 11 out of 13? It's fantastic that through their hard work, they've proved that we're nowhere near the estimation of that poll."
- with files from Cameron Doherty, Huskies Athletics
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