The University of the Fraser Valley men's soccer team saw its championship dreams snuffed on Saturday morning in Calgary, as they dropped a 5-0 decision to the Victoria Vikes in the Canada West semifinals.

Playing at the CW Final Four hosted by Mount Royal University, the Vikes got early goals from Jose Sagaste and Ian Whibley, then poured on the offence with three more goals after UFV's Jun Won Choi was sent off.

The Cascades were denied a pair of program firsts they had been seeking – a trip to the CW final, and a berth to the U SPORTS national championship tournament.

They will face the loser of Saturday's late semifinal between Mount Royal and UBC in Sunday's bronze medal match (10 a.m. Pacific time / 11 a.m. Mountain, CanadaWest.tv presented by Co-op), while the Vikes face the winner for gold.

Victoria opened the scoring in the ninth minute, as Sagaste rose to head the ball home off Mark Kaiser's free kick. Then in the 19th, off a counterattack, the Vikes made it 2-0 as Isaac Koch's cross found Whibley at the far post for the close-range header.

The Cascades began to find their footing at that point, generating some looks at goal off set pieces of their own, but their comeback effort hit the wall in the 27th minute as Choi was assessed a straight red card, leaving UFV a man down for the balance of the game.

"We didn't help ourselves, conceding a poor goal off a set piece, and then the red card's completely changed the game," Cascades head coach Tom Lowndes said afterward.

"It's a mammoth if not impossible task playing a good team like Vic with 10 men for 65 minutes. I'm proud of my players – they stuck together, they didn't quit, they didn't throw the towel in. I'm proud of them for that."

With the Cascades down to 10 men, the Vikes took advantage. In the 35th, UFV keeper Jackson Cowx came charging out to stop Koch on the breakaway, but Trey Ference tracked down the rebound and lobbed a high-arcing shot from distance that settled into the net.

In first-half injury time, Parman Minhas turned at the top of the box and took a crack at goal, but Vikes keeper Harjot Nijjar leaped to tip away his rising shot, which was headed towards the top left corner.

Koch and Sergio Duran rounded out the scoring in the second half, and Nijjar sealed the shutout by leaping to save Minhas's header off a corner.

"Physically, we're beaten up . . . but we've got to regroup," Lowndes said, looking ahead to the bronze medal match. "We'll have to make some changes, set up a little bit differently. There will be some younger guys that will get some minutes.

"This one hurts, it stings. We've got to let it sting today and use that as fuel for the fire tomorrow."