Out of more than 70 teams in all divisions of the Vancouver Island Soccer League, the Cowichan Craig Street 49ers are the last one without a blemish on their record.
A 2-1 win over UVic Alumni at the University of Victoria on Friday night made the 49ers the last team in the entire VISL not to have dropped a single point.
“We’re proud of that,” Cowichan head coach Kevin James acknowledged. “But we know we have to continue playing hard to keep it that way.”
The 49ers and UVic, who started the season in separate pools, both went into the match with eight wins through their first eight matches. The VISL brass took notice, and highlighted the match as their Game of the Week. Cowichan started creating chances right away.
“I thought we started out really strong,” James said. “We had two or three really good opportunities to score, but we couldn’t find the back of the net.”
Finally at 26 minutes Tyler Hughes whipped a pass to Richard Lord, who finished it off with a header, and Cowichan held their 1-0 lead into halftime.
There was a shift in the game for about 10 or 15 minutes early in the second half. Lord was hit with a late tackle that sent him to the sidelines with a knee injury and earned a yellow card for the guilty UVic player.
“We thought it deserved more than that,” James said. “Unfortunately, the ref didn’t see it that way. It threw us off; in our eyes it wasn’t a good decision not to give them a red card.”
Literally adding insult to injury, the player who injured Lord ended up scoring shortly afterwards.
Cowichan settled back in after that, and went back to the way they were playing earlier. In the 76th minute, Hughes fed the ball to Stu Barker, who restored Cowichan’s lead with his league-leading 21st goal of the season. The 49ers had two more goals waved off due to offside calls after that one.
“It’s unfortunate,” James said. “But the opportunities were there.”
UVic pressed for the last few minutes, but Cowichan withstood the barrage. Rob McIntyre made some big saves to preserve the win, while Darcy Penner was awarded the team belt at the end of the match, and Hughes was given the MVP honour, an award that is handed out by the VISL in featured Games of the Week.
“Everybody contributed, whether they were on the bench or playing in the game,” James said. “Everyone was positive.”
Holding fast to first place in the masters A division, the 49ers will play at home on Saturday, hosting CB Red Barn Bobcats on the Sherman Road turf at 6 p.m. Cowichan, beat the Bobcats 1-0 with 10 men for most of the game, on Oct. 12, and the Bobcats are just coming off a win over third-place Gorge.
“They’re the team for us that we need to roll up our sleeves against,” James said. “We need to outwork them and outplay them.”
In the masters B division, the Cowichan Steelheads played to a scoreless tie with Castaways Juniors at Central Park on Sunday afternoon. With three wins, two draws and four losses, the Steelheads sit third in the division and will host Prospect Lake on Saturday at 8 p.m.