Men’s soccer Wolves pull slick comeback in extra time to beat Seneca
It took 91 minutes for Algonquin College to score the winning goal when the Wolves faced the Seneca Sting in men’s soccer at the Woodroffe Sports Field on Oct. 4. The home crowd’s roar at the final whistle was all the louder because of it.
The Wolves edged out Seneca 2-1, continuing their dominant season.
The game got off to a rough start with a goal from each team in the first 15 minutes, but both were disqualified as offside.
The Seneca Sting’s Cristiano DeFreitas sunk one that counted at 23 minutes. He snuck past his defender near the net to get a long cross from Dylan Campbell and jump-kick for the goal. Seneca then held the Algonquin Wolves on a grinding defence for the rest of the half.
“We came in (to the locker room) after the half, kind of unmotivated. It was tough to get the boys going,” said Oscar Forward, one of the vice-captains of the Wolves. “We started off really well, we started to decrease, started to rush the game. Coming into the locker game we had to regroup, get the boys back in place.”
The second half was initially more of the same, with few shots seriously testing the goalies.
There was also controversy with referees.
At 59 minutes, an unknown Wolves player or coach was shown a yellow card for shouting “Absolutely f—–g killing us!” to referee Austin Fromhold-Treu after Seneca was awarded a goal kick that they seemed to believe should have been an Algonquin corner kick.
This person could not be identified as they were on the sideline and a number was not visible on their clothing.
The turnaround finally came when Algonquin’s Alessandro Vivolo outran two opponents, then sniped the ball past two more and the goalie to score. The Wolves found new life and played more aggressively, but Seneca defended well for the rest of regular time.
Then, with three minutes of extra time added, Algonquin struck again. A free kick from central midfielder Alaa Mahfouz was headed away by Seneca goalie Amar Dhindsa. Wolves Centre-back Kerim Tosun charged in and sent it sizzling back, past multiple feet and into the net. Algonquin sailed through two final minutes to win the game.
This game came just after Algonquin’s women’s team lost 1-0 to the Sting. Seneca women were still in attendance and often chanted loudly, though they were drowned out by Algonquin fans at the final whistle.
Angus Wong, the head coach of the men’s soccer Wolves, was pleased with the result.
“We always had faith that if we were able to execute what we’re working on, we would be able to get a result,” he said in an interview after the game.
About 80 people came to watch on the misty evening, and some ran onto the field to celebrate afterwards.
Algonquin is now the top-ranked men’s soccer team in the Ontario Colleges Athletics Association’s eastern division. On Oct. 5, the Wolves kept that spot with a 2-2 tie against the Centennial Colts. With only two games left in the regular season, they could very well head to the playoffs in style. Their next game is against St. Lawrence in Kingston on Oct. 9. They then come back home to face Cambrian on Oct. 12.
Wong said the team wants to stay at the top of the league.
“That’s obviously the goal,” he said. “We know that tomorrow’s a tough game at Centennial, and then we have two more tough games. The schedule gets very compressed in these last weeks. We’re playing against the opposition, but we’re also trying to manage the workload of our players, and it becomes kind of tricky at the end.”
Forward was more optimistic.
“We’re looking forward to the game tomorrow and re-establishing our dominance in the division, and our dominance as a program in general,” he said. “When teams have to play us, we don’t want them to have to play us … being the number one team, (there’s a) target on your back, and the boys like it.”
