Just a few weeks ago Powell River Villa was worried about both its inability to score and its goal differential.
At Timberlane Park on Sunday, against Penelakut United, Villa added six more goals to the plus column that has exploded by 15 goals in just three games.
Powell River went straight to work and won almost every battle which prompted a Penelakut defender to say: “we all just watched it” as they lost another ball.
The pace and pressure led to several corner kicks in a short span of 15 minutes and Villa made good on a couple of them.
Billy Bagiopoulos worked his magic from the corner and got a short ball to Nick van’t Schip who dropped it in to Ben Elliot who headed it toward the goal.
The keeper made the save but the rebound came right to Rob Devlin who volleyed it in to take the lead.
The second goal came five minutes later when Elliot yelled for the penalty spot and Bagiopoulos put it there for Elliot to head in to the top corner.
The recurring nightmare continued for Penelakut three minutes later when Elliot’s header on the corner kick was missed by the keeper but kept out by a desperate defender on the line.
No such luck on the next one when, this time, Bagiopoulos started a nice set piece.
“Billy put it in to me quickly and I got it to Robert [Devlin],” said van’t Schip of his goal, “and he put it back to me on the corner of the 18 and I chipped it in.”
He usually likes to hit the ball hard but this time van’t Schip lobbed it perfectly over the keeper’s head for Villa’s third goal.
They stretched the lead to 4-0 with yet another corner kick from Bagiopoulos and another header from Elliot at 29 minutes.
Clearly Penelakut was struggling to keep up with the pace and dynamic Villa duo but a switch to the other side of the pitch was no better.
A corner taken by Brody Harry was mishandled by the keeper on the goal line, clearly went behind it for a moment but was undetected and swept back into play.
Had the score been closer the protest might have been louder but the game continued and Villa did add a fifth goal before the end of the half.
Harry sprung Jake Kenmuir free and he deked the keeper to score into an empty net at 38 minutes to give Villa a 5-0 lead at the break.
The second half wasn’t nearly as eventful as the first and despite a game effort by Penekalut to spoil the shutout for keeper Ross Fitzgibbon, Villa scored the only goal.
This time it was Bagiopoulos who was on the receiving end of a nice pass from Kenmuir who was happy to feed the youngster for his first Villa goal.
“He’s new to town and the team,” said Kenmuir, “and it’s always nice to get the first one.”
Kenmuir patiently fought off his check for a clear pass to Bagiopoulos and fed him perfectly for the one-timer.
The game was a breakthrough of sorts for Villa whose players might be their own worst enemy when it comes to offence.
“We play it well in the back two thirds,” said Kenmuir, “but sometimes are too focused on the front third. I don’t know if it’s nerves or excitement, but sometimes we tend to play with our heads down. Today it was more about composure.”
In any case Villa is a tighter unit this year and the bond between the players translates to the pitch.
“We hang out all the time outside of soccer more than in the past,” explained Kenmuir. “I’ll just call up say, Ben [Elliot] and we’ll just hang out whereas before we wouldn’t do that and it’s nice because it turns into trust too.”
The win pulled Villa into a third-place tie with Hellas FC, the opposition for a big game in Victoria, on Saturday, November 30.
Team Standings
Rank Team GP W L T GF GA Diff Pts
1 Castaways FC 3A 11 7 2 2 27 8 19 23
2 FC Sagres 3A 10 7 1 2 17 9 8 23
3 Powell River Villa 3A 10 7 2 1 27 11 16 22
4 Hellas FC 3A 11 7 3 1 27 13 14 22
5 SFFC Active Earth Engineering 3A 11 4 2 5 19 17 2 17
6 Lakehill Danger Police 3A 10 4 4 2 25 20 5 14
7 Westcastle SSFC 3A 9 3 3 3 16 14 2 12
8 Penelakut United 3A 9 2 6 1 16 30 -14 7
9 Juan de Fuca 3A 11 0 9 2 7 36 -29 2
10 Peninsula Stachers 3A 10 0 9 1 9 32 -23 1
