This past Wednesday, September 12th, the UTM men’s varsity soccer team had their first game of the outdoor season against the Humber Hawks. Despite the 5-1 loss, UTM had some positive moments that they can carry with them through the rest of the season.
Shortly into the start of the game, Humber got their first goal. A giveaway in the middle of the pitch led to a threw ball for the Humber winger. From there, it was an easy cross into the box where the Humber player tapped it in. Not too long after this, Humber received another opportunity where the ball hit the crossbar and landed just in front of the goal line, allowing the score to remain 1-0.
Although Humber got an early goal, UTM was playing with intensity and had excellent communication from the goalkeeper to the striker. This led to midfielder, Jaimin Rehal, sending an excellent through ball to rookie striker, Jamari Whyte, where he went one-on-one with the goalie but kicked it just over the net. Less than two minutes later, UTM’s Moe Golmakani, crossed to Whyte where he buried it in the back of the net—making up for the previous miss. The remainder of the half was a lot of back and forth play with UTM doing a great job on both the attack and defense. The score stayed tied 1-1 at half.
The second half started off well for both teams, but it was Humber who got the first scoring opportunity. UTM goalkeeper and captain, Aaron Peters, made an unbelievable save off a one-time shot in front of the net, keeping his team in the game. With Humber making the UTM defense work, they still managed to stay composed and as a unit. At the 60th minute, Humber got their second goal of the game. It was a direct replication of the first goal they scored with a cross from the outside and a one-time tap into the net. Two minutes later, Humber got yet another goal on an extremely unlucky fumble by Peters where the Humber striker was able to bury it into the back of the net.
UTM started to breakdown after this third goal despite how well they were playing prior to this. With the momentum on their side, Humber scored once again when their player was left wide open on the left side of the field. A through-ball by his teammate allowed the player to go one-on-one with Peters where he passed the ball perfectly into the corner of the net.
With only a few minutes to go in the game, a tackle in the UTM box lead to a questionable penalty kick for Humber. Another shot low to the corner that just skimmed by Peters made the final score rest at 5-1.
The men also played on Friday, September 14 where they lost 5-0 against George Brown and on Sunday, September 16 where they lost 2-1 against the Cambrian golden shields.
