Jefferson Hagen, MacEwan Athletics
EDMONTON – Rarely has momentum turned more on a dime than in Sunday's Canada West men's soccer game between MacEwan and Victoria.
The visiting Vikes ended up with a handful of it when it mattered most, scoring two late goals right after the Griffins tied the game to sashay away with a 3-1 victory before a stunned crowd left sitting in the rain.
Ian Whibley struck in the 87th and 89th minutes to turn what appeared to be a draw into three points for the visitors.
"He did very well," explained Victoria head coach Bruce Wilson. "He's a bit of a horse. He's super fit. He needs to work on a few things skill-wise, but he's the type of guy you want on your team. He never stops running. He keeps defences under pressure by himself. I'm glad he scored the two goals. I gave him player of the game for us, for sure."
Whibley took a long through ball, turned a defender inside out and blasted the game-winner past Seth Johnstone in the 87th before scoring an insurance marker from the left two minutes later on a play that had the Griffins waiting for an offside flag that never came.
Either way, it was a remarkable collapse for MacEwan, which had all the momentum after Everett Orgnero – with his second goal of the weekend – tied the contest 1-1 in the 82nd minute on a great finish of Liam Creek's perfect through ball.
The Griffins lost shape on the game-winner and paid dearly for it.
"We just lost focus," lamented head coach Adam Loga. "We didn't re-centre ourselves after tying the game and had guys making decisions that they … shouldn't have made. They know better than that.
"Again, it goes back a little bit to our youth and immaturity. That being said, whether you're 18 or 87, if you've played the game, you know you don't do those certain things. Unfortunately, they did today, and they were able to get the second."
Victoria held a 1-0 lead for nearly 60 minutes in the contest after Jack Hill headed home a Mark Kaiser corner kick in the 22nd minute.
In a game of swinging momentum changes, that came just three minutes after Vikes goalkeeper Jas Lally made a scintillating diving stop to rob Tyrell Leslie on a penalty kick. Leslie earned the opportunity after Christian Hernandez was American football-tackled in the box while attempting to head home a rebound off Zachary Rochat's 30-yard free kick.
Lally finished with eight saves for the Vikes, while Johnstone had nine for the Griffins – bringing his weekend total to 25 in two games. Victoria outshot MacEwan 20-14 (14-9 in shots on goal), but the run of play was pretty even, as evidenced by six corner kicks each.
Wilson was pleased with the result in a contest that could have gone either way as his team moves to 2-2-3 on the campaign.
"I give our team credit," he said. "They never stopped. I certainly give MacEwan credit for scoring the goal. With about six minutes to go it was a tie game.
"Full credit to us, we kept going, kept going enough to win and that really will help us move towards a playoff position."
All MacEwan (3-3-1) can do is chalk it up to a valuable learning experience for a team that has 13 rookies as they missed a chance to solidify second place in the Prairie Division in a crucial search for their first-ever Canada West playoff berth.
"We're just making it a little bit more difficult on ourselves," said Loga. "We had an opportunity today to gain some separation and create some distance between us and the teams below us. We need to learn from it and if we don't learn from it, that's the bigger loss."
Next up for the Griffins are visits to UBC-Okanagan (1-4-3) and UBC (5-0-1) on Sept. 21-22, while Victoria will host Calgary (2-4-0) Sept. 21 and Lethbridge (0-5-1) on Sept. 23.
