Travelling light on a trip up-Island once again, Cowichan LMG picked up U18 Gold boys player Miles Boulton for their road match in Comox last Saturday, and he ended up helping the senior men’s team to a 2-1 victory.
Boulton started the second half for Cowichan and played 25 minutes, coming off just before Paddy Nelson scored the game-winning goal.
Cowichan scored the opening goal just two minutes into the match when Craig Gorman jumped on a turnover and capitalized for his first of the season.
“That was the start we wanted,” LMG head coach Glen Martin said.
The rest of the first half was pretty even, Martin recalled, and Cowichan went to halftime up 1-0.
Comox evened the score about five minutes into the second half. Cowichan goalkeeper Scott Brown made the initial save, and as a Cowichan defender moved to tackle the Comox player who recovered the ball, he inadvertently put the ball into the top corner.
“There was nothing our goalie could do about it,” Martin said.
At the 70-minute mark, Martin subbed off Boulton and Sam Beswick in favour of Govinda Innes and Liam Gorman, and less than a minute after that, Nelson went on a breakaway and buried the ball for his third of the season, which would stand up as the game-winner.
Instead of instructing his players to push for the third goal, which has been his usual strategy and has occasionally hurt the team this year, Martin had them play defensive soccer and hold on to the one-goal lead, and it paid off.
“We finally figured out how to win a game,” Martin said.
Martin was happy to come back to Duncan with a win.
“Comox played well up there,” he said. “When you can come back with three points, you’re pretty happy.”
LMG will play on their home turf this Friday for the first time since their season opener on Sept. 16, hosting Lakehill at 7:30 p.m.