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Western Wins Gold At CIAU Men's Soccer Championships In Montreal. Western Scores Two Goals In First 7 Minutes And Hangs On To Defeat Alberta 2-1 The University of Western Ontario Mustangs are the new CIAU champions in university men's soccer this season. The Mustangs bucked the usual trend to play defensively in playoff soccer and it paid off in gold. They come out the gate kicking and tallied twice in the first seven minutes to defeat the University of Alberta Golden Bears 2-1 in the championship game at the CIAU men's soccer championships in Montreal on Sunday. "It's an unbelievable feeling," said Western head coach Rock Basacco. "We worked tremendously hard, as have all the teams here. It was an excellent tournament." Mustangs defender Michael Potts broke up the middle and opened the scoring in the fourth minute of the game. Midfielder Xavier Paturel added the winning marker only three minutes later with his tournament-leading forth goal. "We watched Alberta play a couple of games and there were a few things that we picked up and thought we might be able to exploit," said Basacco. "And one was Mike (Potts) coming through the middle and not being picked up. He's hit two or three of those shots where he rang the ball off the cross-bar and today, he just put it away for us. That was a great first goal for us." The docile Bears awoke and roared to life in the 23rd minute on a goal by fifth-year veteran Mike Radmanovich, a midfielder from Edmonton. Only eight minutes later, however, Alberta midfielder Damir Jesic, a native of Sarjevo, Bosnia, was red carded for illegal contact and the Bears were forced to play one man short for the remainder of the game. The game MVPs were Paturel for Western and Edmonton native Ryan Walker for the Golden Bears. Alberta actually outshot the Mustangs 6-5 and had six corner kicks to Western's three but they couldn't muster any sustained offence being short a man. Western keeper John Dreliozis of London made five saves for the win while Nick Holt, a native of Wales, took the loss for Alberta. It was Western's first ever CIAU championship and they finished the season on a seven-game win streak. Potts, a kinesiology student from Toronto, was named as the tournament's most valuable player, while Paturel was named as the top scorer. McGill's Jason Forsyth was selected as the CIAU tourney's top goaltender for the second consecutive year. Match Stats Goals: Western(2) Alberta (2) Shots On Net: Western(5) Alberta(6) Shots Towards Net: Western (18), Alberta (6) Fouls By: Western (8), Alberta (4) Cards By: Western (1 yellow), Alberta (1 red) Corners By: Western (3), Alberta (6) Offsides By: Western (2), Alberta (1) |
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