On a rainy September night this past Friday, the Lions’ male soccer team looked to maintain their unbeaten run against the Waterloo Warriors. The Lions put their foot on the gas early in the game as they dominated possession in the first half and even throughout the game.
The Lions had multiple shots on target, but nothing seemed to get past the Waterloo’s goalkeeper, Lorin Alexander-Lopez .Late in the first half, the Warriors controversially broke the deadlock ,when Waterloo’s number 25 Adam Poradzisz appeared to knock the ball out of York’s goalkeeper Alessio Carbone’s hands.
York started the second half well, but unfortunately for them, they were caught on the counterattack and conceded a second goal scored by Waterloo’s number 15 Nikolas Antolcic. The Warriors began to park the bus for the majority of the second half. Still, their attempts were futile as Christian Zappieri scored a penalty in the 87th minute, and Daniel Avilla scored with the last kick of the game. Avila’s goal caused an eruption amongst the York community who attended the game.
Despite the team’s effort to protect their unbeaten run, Head Coach Carmine Issacco was not too impressed. “I’m a kind of a glass half empty kind of guy, so I’m looking at reasons why we were in that situation we shouldn’t have been in,” Issacco says, “I prefer to fix the things that went bad.”
Issacco looks to sharpen the team’s defensive efforts in subsequent games: “We’re going to learn from our mistakes. We’re going to get our defensive transition right. Those details, like those not winning tackles in the middle of the field and stop transitions, all those things and being a little cleaner in the offensive third, that all has to get better” says Issaco.
Earlier that evening, the women’s soccer team dominantly defeated Waterloo, thanks to goals by Nia Flemming-Thompson and Sabrina Fabiano. This is the first victory for the women’s team; they are still unbeaten because of their ties with Laurier and McMaster. Both male and female teams are in good form, andthey look like contenders for the OUA.
