Adam Szymanski celebrates his quarterfinal winning goal against Calgary
Rich Lam / UBC Athletics
2
Winner UFV UFV (1-0-0, 0-0-0)
0
Calgary CGY (0-1-0, 0-0-0)
Winner
UFV UFV
(1-0-0, 0-0-0)
2
Final
0
Calgary CGY
(0-1-0, 0-0-0)
Score By Periods
Team 1 2 OT 1 OT 2 F
UFV UFV 0 0 1 1 2
Calgary CGY 0 0 0 0 0

Game Recap: Men's Soccer |

MSOC: Déjà-two - Cascades defeat Calgary in conference quarterfinal for second straight season

Extra time goals from Szymanski and Heider send UFV to Canada West Final Four

In a similar script to the previous season's postseason, it took 120 minutes of play, but the University of the Fraser Valley Cascades booked their berth into Sunday's Canada West men's soccer semi-final with a 2-0 victory over the Calgary Dinos at UBC's Thunderbird Stadium Friday evening.

The two teams met in last year's Canada West quarterfinal, with the Cascades prevailing in a penalty shootout on that occasion.
 
Defender Adam Szymanski was the UFV hero, finally breaking the deadlock with his first career Canada West goal in a tense affair in the final minutes of the first half of extra time. Szymanski was equally superb on the defensive side, preventing a Calgary equalizer with a last ditch tackle in the box, before Grischa Heider secured the victory with a first career Canada West goal of his own in the 120th minute.
 
 
"Another good battle, it always seems to be a really good battle when we play them," UFV head coach Tom Lowndes said after the match. "They're a quality team full of veterans and we had to be at our best today, especially defensively. We weathered some storms, but I felt the first 20 minutes of both halves we looked good.
 
"They've got a lot of attacking weapons, but I thought we defended fantastically. It's kind of the same story as last year. We talked about it. If we're not great with the ball, we need to be great without the ball, and tonight we were really good. We'll rest up now and get to go for maybe another epic battle again on Sunday afternoon."
 
It always felt that there would be little to choose between the two sides, in their first meeting of the season, and it proved to be the case, needing 120 minutes to finally separate the two.
 
Fraser Valley came out on the front foot, but as the first half went on Calgary started to stamp their authority on the match, creating the best chances to break the deadlock but denied by some excellent saves from Cascades goalkeeper Matheus De Souza.
 
UFV's best chance came in the 29th minute when Milan Ponjevic sliced an attempted clearance of his own bar in the wet conditions, but no Cascades player was able to get onto the rebound.
 
The Dinos pushed hard to go in with the lead, but De Souza kept out chances from both Soliman Aria and Victor Gouttin.
 
The second half didn't produce too many goalscoring opportunities but Dinos keeper Hany Shafie produced a great save to tip a Szymanski shot onto his bar and over, before De Souza produced a sprawling stop to turn an Owen Antonuik free kick around his near post.
 
The deadlock was finally broken in the 104th minute when the Dinos could only clear a corner to Szymanski at the edge of the box and his rocket of a shot flew past Shafie and into the net.
 
Calgary pushed hard for a late leveller but couldn't find a way through a resolute backline and the game finished in chaotic scenes as Calgary saw James Greco-Taylor sent off after taking Heider down on a break. Moments later, Antonuik  was also red-carded along with UFV's Harjoven Sidhu after an incident following the Cascades' second goal.
 
 
UFV will now play UBC in Sunday's semi-final at Thunderbird Stadium, where a win will secure them a place at next month's U SPORTS men's soccer national championship in Toronto. Kick-off Sunday is 1:00 p.m. and can be viewed live on Canada West TV.
 

-with files from Michael McColl-
 
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