Eagle Watch - Year in Review: Men’s Soccer

Kyle Benning [sports bureau chief]

The men’s soccer team didn’t have a season to remember, but it was a significant one.

The Eagles entered tryouts with a new coach in charge, with a new system and a new squad.

Ajit Braich was named the head coach of the men’s team in February of this year, which made him the second head coach in many years.

Braich held tryouts relatively soon after he was hired to get a sense of the team he was about to take on. The first set of sessions ran two weeks after Kwantlen released his name as being head coach.

But the three days in March was not enough time for Braich to decide his final roster, so he held another identification camp at the end of April and beginning of May.
After holding both sessions, Braich released a roster of 20 players with 12 being rookies.

With that many inexperienced players, it looked like the Eagles’ season was going to need patience and commitment.

Once July came, the team began practising nine hours a week to try and form some kind of chemistry and organize their style of play, set pieces and other business that needed to be set before the season began.

The team went 12 hours per week when August arrived to make sure they were prepared for their league campaign.

The Eagles were set to start the new season at home on the new pitch at Newton Athletic Park on Sept. 12 against the UNBC Timberwolves.

The Eagles started their season with a bang as Gino McLeod potted two quick goals for the Eagles in their home opener.

Unfortunately, it all seemed to go downhill from there. The Timberwolves came back with a vengeance and scored four unanswered goals to win the match 4-2.

The following weekend, the Eagles traveled to Prince George to try and set the record straight against the Timberwolves who beat them on their new field six days earlier.

But the Timberwolves managed to put four more goals past the Eagles, while our team could only manage to score a lone goal. Little did the team know, their season was about to take a turn for the worse.

The team followed this performance with two-match home stand against Thompson Rivers University and UBCO.

TRU seemed to control the flow of play and the momentum before finishing the match 5-0.

It looked like the same story the following day against the Heat as the Eagles failed to score while conceding four goals themselves. The defence appeared to be very fragile, whether they were playing at home or on the road.

But if nine goals were not enough for one weekend, the team hosted Douglas College the following Saturday.

The Royals were the toughest team in the league, and it showed. They racked up nine goals after 90 minutes at Newton Athletic Park.

On the following day, a deflated Eagles team would go to Coquitlam Town Centre to play the team who just embarrassed them on home turf. Fortunately, it wasn’t as severe as it was the previous encounter as the Eagles held the Royals to 5 while their scoring drought increased to four matches.

However, that might have sparked the fire that the men were looking for, because the men picked up their first and only point of the season the following Sunday in Squamish against Quest in a 2-2 draw. Of course, they did lose 3-0 the day before to the VIU Mariners in Nanaimo.

However, that was the most valuable point a team could earn. It gave the entire team a shot of confidence and all of the players appeared to “grow up.”

“Any result at any time of the season perks everybody up around the campus,” said Braich. “I felt that they grew up that day by picking up that point.”

The Eagles entered their final home games with a sense of optimism as local rivals Langara and Capilano were preparing for provincials.

Anyone watching the game against Langara could tell that the Eagles were playing with more purpose and were unlucky not to get anything from this match as they lost 3-2.

Capilano arrived the following day and appeared to be stronger than Langara.

The Eagles put up a decent fight, but after conceding an early goal, they couldn’t hold on and lost 2-0.

Their final two games didn’t really have much importance to their final position, and the young Eagles side lost both matches on the road to UBCO and TRU 3-0 and 7-0.

“It was a difficult season. I didn’t realize we’d lose by as many goals, but we are such a young team. However, with the signs that we left on the field, with other schools, the coaching staff and the athletic directors is that we are on the right road; building a program over two or three years,” said Braich.

“[I would like to] thank everybody at the athletic department obviously. And I think the program is heading in the right direction. [We] just a little bit more patience.”

The men finished the season with a record of 0-1-11, scoring seven goals and allowing 51.