Cowichan United collected their first win of the young U21 men’s soccer season on Sunday afternoon, edging past Bays United FC 4-3 at the Sherman Road turf.
The teams traded goals throughout the match, both teams holding the lead at various times until Logan Kits scored what stood up as the game-winner.
New addition Igor Liah also scored, as did mainstays Devin Jack and Michael Fusick. Head coach Tyler Hughes was pleased to get offensive contributions from multiple players.
“You don’t want your team to be one-dimensional and rely on one player,” he said. “We have a lot of players with offensive qualities, so it’s not surprising a lot of people are scoring.”
Offence is going to be Cowichan’s bread and butter in the early parts of the season, Hughes suggested.
“We’ve been scoring a lot of goals, which is good,” he said. “We’ve been focusing on what we do when we are in possession of the ball, and we’re starting to pass, starting to break teams down better. With Logan Kits and Igor as our two forwards, they’re probably two of the best forwards in the league, so goals will probably not be too hard to come by. Once we get a better hang of it, we will focus on defence a bit more, so I’m not really worried about it. The same thing happened last year: we let in a lot of goals early. We’re not putting a lot of emphasis on [defence] right now.”
An international student from Brazil, Liah is in Canada for his Grade 12 year, and Hughes is happy to have him on board this season.
“He’s been a good addition,” Hughes said. “You can tell he’s played at a good level in Brazil. He provides a different taste of flair our guys haven’t seen before. He’s doing well.”
Cowichan will carry a record of one win, one draw and one loss into their next league game, when they host Lakehill this Sunday at 2:15 p.m.
“They were a strong team last year,” Hughes said of Lakehill. “We’re not at the stage of the season where we’re concerning ourselves with the opposition. We will focus on our play, and hopefully it will be a good challenge.”
United also played a McGavin Cup game last week, bowing out of the tournament with a 3-2 quarter-final loss to Prospect Lake’s Div. 2 team at Adam Kerr Park.
“The Division 2 teams we play are good matchups for us,” Hughes said. “They’re competitive games. The guys are bigger and definitely more physical, so it’s a good challenge in that respect for our guys. It took us a good half a game to get used to that, but once we did, we played pretty well against them.”
Prospect scored two of their goals on corner kicks, which Hughes blamed on a lack of experience and discipline on his team’s behalf. Cowichan did come back twice to tie the game, with Liah scoring both goals, before Prospect pulled ahead for good.
“The effort and attitude of our boys was good,” he said. “It wasn’t an easy game. It was a tough, physical game, but a lot of positive things came out of it.”