New head coach Rick Titus took his recently-picked UTM men’s varsity indoor soccer team to the Pickering Soccer Centre for their first tournament of the year. With a new coach and some new players, the guys got off to a slow start, and lost to the host Centennial Colts by a narrow one-goal margin.
In their second game of the day, the UTM men’s squad dominated the second half of the game, and defeated Sheridan college by a two-goal margin.
Titus, is pleased with his team’s performance. “I was very pleased with the tournament results as we made the final. There were many positive areas of play, and the fact that we are creating and scoring a lot of goals is very promising. We are building and growing as a unit, and our goal is to be one of the top teams in the OCAA.”
In the third game of the tournament, the UTM men’s team needed a win against the undefeated George Brown Huskies. UTM played what may have been their best game of the tournament, and won the game 3-2, to take first place after the round robin.
Making it to the finals, the men fell behind 5-1 to GBC. With only 12 minutes left, the Eagles scored four goals to make an interesting comeback, but GBC would also tally a goal and take the final score 6-5.
It was a great start for a new team who are adapting to their new coach. He said, “This winter season selection is a good team with talent and the desire to win. There are areas that we need to improve upon because we are a new team building a new system, so it will take time to learn it and implement it effectively. Yesterday’s tournament was very positive, as I could see how much we were all learning about each other, and becoming familiar is a major plus.”
The UTM women’s team dropped two close games, losing both by only one point, to Centennial and then Sheridan, before losing by a large margin to GBC in their third game of the day. With the game not counting in the standings and the players’ fatigue, the score was not telling of the team’s play earlier in the tournament.
Both teams will look to build on their promising starts as they head to the Redeemer Royal Cup tournament, held in Ancaster at the end of January.
