Friday, Oct. 29: Cascades (4-3-5, 3rd in West Division) vs. Alberta Golden Bears (4-1-5, 2nd in Central Division), 1 p.m. Pacific / 2 p.m. Mountain
Edmonton, Alta.
Webcast: CanadaWest.tv presented by Co-op

THE MATCH-UP

The Cascades and Golden Bears clash in the Canada West quarter-finals at Foote Field for the right to advance to the CW Final Four.

Goals figure to be at a premium in this match-up, as both teams ranked in the top half of Canada West for goals-against, and in the bottom half offensively. Alberta, in fact, was the stingiest defensive team in the conference, surrendering just four goals over their 10 league games; they mustered just 11 goals themselves (10th in CW on a per-game basis), with seven of those coming off the foot of star striker Ajeej Sarkaria.

The Cascades rank just ahead of the Golden Bears offensively, scoring 1.25 goals per game (15 in 12 conference matches), and they're sixth in the conference defensively, allowing a modest 1.08 goals per game.

The Cascades have historic precedent for playoff success vs. Alberta, defeating the Golden Bears in CW quarter-final match-ups in 2013 and 2015.

In 2013, they notched the first playoff win in program history, defeating Alberta 1-0 at UBC on Colton O'Neill's goal, en route to the CW bronze medal. In 2015, they battled the Golden Bears in a quarter-final barn-burner which saw UFV build leads of 2-0 and 3-1, only to watch the hosts battle back to tie it 3-3. UFV's Connor MacMillan, though, scored in the 84th minute to give the Cascades a 4-3 win, and once again, they would go on to win the CW bronze medal.

RECENT FORM

The Cascades come in as one of the nation's hottest teams, having gone undefeated in their past seven games (4-0-3). They've been in playoff mode for a while now – last weekend, they needed to win both of their road games at UBC Okanagan to qualify for the post-season, and got the job done.

The Golden Bears are undefeated in their past three games (1-0-2), and are coming off a four-point weekend vs. the Saskatchewan Huskies which eliminated the Huskies from playoff contention.

PLAYERS TO WATCH

Tobias Spiess, UFV – The rookie centre back from Nuremberg, Germany is the reigning Canada West men's soccer athlete of the week, in recognition of his two-goal outburst in last Saturday's playoff-clinching win over UBC Okanagan. Spiess has been sensational for the Cascades throughout the season, forming an effective centre back partnership with Sahib Sidhu.

Ajeej Sarkaria, Alberta – You'd be hard-pressed to find a "player to watch" more worthy of that designation than Canada West's all-time points leader. Sarkaria has lit up the conference over his time with the Golden Bears, and ranked second in CW in goals (seven) and tied for second in points (eight) with UFV's Trevor Zanatta this season.

QUOTABLE

"I think we're battled-tested, playing in this competitive division. We've had tough games week in and week out, and hopefully that's going to set us up to go play a quality team like Alberta on the road. There's a great belief and a great fight in the group, and that was obviously shown last weekend. We're looking to take that momentum forward into a big playoff game." – Cascades head coach Tom Lowndes

"Alberta has many attacking options, but obviously Sarkaria is going to be their main focal point. We're going to have to be strong defensively to limit their opportunities in the game. On the flip side, defensively they're stingy and don't concede a lot of goals. They're hard to break down. We're going to have to be creative and use our attacking pieces to cause them some problems." – Lowndes, on the challenges posed by the Golden Bears