Edmonton, AB –
Adriano Consiglio's first career Canada West goal stood as the winner, as the UFV Cascades defeated the MacEwan University Griffins 2-1 on Saturday afternoon at the Edmonton Scottish Soccer Dome.
Consiglio's second half marker followed a
Mateo Brazinha tally in the first half for the Cascades to improve their record to 5-2-2 on the season. Meanwhile, MacEwan falls to 2-4-1 on the year.
How it happened:
It was a flurry of action in the first 20 minutes, as the Griffins had a shot from outside the box come off the crossbar, before a chance from Braziinha was turned away by MacEwan goalkeeper Oleksandr Popravka.
UFV looked to have a penalty shout in the 16
th minute, as
Riku Suga appeared to be taken down in the box, but it was waved away by the official.
The Cascades finally broke through in first half stoppage time, as an
Anthony Vega corner was headed down by
Adam Szymanski into the path of Brazinha. The UFV forward made no mistake to score the opening goal.
UFV continued to push in the second half, and was rewarded in the 52
nd minute, as
Michael Beecroft played a terrific ball through to Consiglio who deftly clipped it over the keeper.
MacEwan found an answer in the 60
th minute, as the ball fell to Felix Guité in the box, and his shot found the bottom left corner to cut the lead to one.
The Griffins pushed to score in the late moments, but UFV goalkeeper
Jackson Cowx made an unbelievable reaction save to get a hand on an shot from Guité in the 78
th-minute from 15 feet away and seal the Cascades win.
Quotable:
UFV head coach Tom Lowndes
"I thought it was a good road performance. I thought we dealt with some things that they threw at us, that we haven't seen from other teams this year. We scored two good goals, and could have had a couple more, but it was just a disciplined road performance."
"It says a lot about our character and how far we have come in the last 12 months. That is a tough place to come and play with the environment and playing in the dome. Teams will struggle when they go there, but I thought we dealt with the conditions and some decisions that went against us really well. We looked like a mature team that knew how to get a result on the road."
Lowndes on Consiglio scoring on his first game after returning from an injury
"We missed him a bit last week, and no diss on anyone that played in that position, but he's developed his game a lot over the last 12 months. He likes to get forward, but he can also defend and he's vocal out there. To see him come back in and play well after being out with a concussion is nice, and to see him pop up with a goal was even better."
Notable:
As mentioned, Consiglio's goal was the first of his Canada West career for the second-year fullback.
Brazinha continued his hot start to the year, scoring his seventh goal of the season as he leads the conference in goals and assists, and leads the nation in points with 11.
With five saves in the game, UFV goalkeeper
Jackson Cowx moves up to 169 saves in his career, just 22 saves shy of the Cascades program record held by Mark Village (191).
For the ninth straight conference game, the Cascades scored the first goal of the game.
Next Up:
The Cascades head down the road to the University of Calgary to take on the Dinos on Sunday at 1:15pm PT. The game can be streamed live on canadawest.tv.
To keep up with all the action follow the Cascades on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter at @ufvcascades.
