MacEwan Athletics

KELOWNA, B.C. – Two unwelcome guests showed up to haunt the MacEwan Griffins men's soccer team in a 3-2 loss at the UBC-Okanagan Heat on Friday night.

Achilles' heel No. 1 – a slow start – came out early when the home-standing Heat opened the scoring 13 minutes into the game.

Achilles' heel No. 2 – set pieces – showed up more than once as the Heat notched Goals 1 and 3 off of them.

"It's obviously frustrating," said Griffins head coach Adam Loga. "In the run of play, we've done very well against every opponent and our record's not really reflecting that due to the struggles defending set pieces. Today was exactly that again."

On the plus side of the leger, Griffins rookie Everett Orgnero scored twice to continue a torrid scoring pace – now with four goals in his past three games.

"He's a great kid of character and he's been working on his game tremendously trying to find the back of the net and it's paying off now," said Loga. "First goal, he was slipped through by (Christian) Hernandez and he had a good strike on goal to find the bottom left corner. It was a tidy finish.

"His last goal, Zi (Moyo) played Christian through and Christian cut it back right to Everett on the spot."

Hernandez had two assists and now has three points through eight games.

Despite the positives, though, the Griffins fall to 3-4-1 with the loss, missing a chance to gain some breathing room in the Canada West's Prairie Division playoff race. Adding to the missed opportunity is the fact they go straight to the lair of 6-0-1 UBC on Saturday (8:30 p.m., Canada West TV).

"We know what we need to fix and we've just got to continue to be positive and work at it," said Loga. "Again, in the run of play we've been very good and very dangerous against every opponent we've had this year. We've been kind of our own worst enemy with regards to set pieces and slow starts.

"Again, we've got to hit the reset button and attack tomorrow. It's going to be a great challenge for us that we'll get the guys looking forward to."