Powell River Villa continues to churn out the wins as it dominated Gordon Head Blue 4-0 on Saturday.
The win extends its unbeaten streak to nine and puts it within reach of a couple more teams with two games remaining in its schedule.
Coaches were up bright and early Saturday to secure tickets for the ferry and the team arrived in plenty of time for its 6 pm start in Victoria. As it was, the game already being played on Gordon Head’s pitch went into double overtime and penalty shots so the lengthy delay was of a bit of a concern for Villa’s coaches.
That and Gordon Head’s lineup, which included a few young guns from its organization brought in to help the club avoid relegation, raised the eyebrows of coaches who suspected they were in for quite a game.
Villa, however, met the challenge and then some when it started with a fast pace and got the first goal early in the match.
The players moved the ball around the back and eventually over to Jordan Peters who made a great run deep. From the goal line he curled a shot around the keeper with a right-foot shot from the left side of the pitch.
His goal at the six-minute mark held up until half time when Villa coaches warned of a huge push from the desperate opposition.
Gordon Head did come out of the break with much more determination but Villa defended well and countered with the second goal of the game.
Songmun Choi scored on a beautiful solo effort when he took a long ball down the right wing and pushed it around a defender. He regained control and then beat another defender in the opposition’s corner and finally undressed the keeper to push the ball into the open net.
His first goal in a Villa uniform, scored at the 57th minute, gave Villa some breathing room but it wasn’t done yet.
After a couple of nice give and goes, Kye Taylor cracked the ball from the top of the 18-yard line with his right foot and the ball streaked past the keeper at 77 minutes.
Down 3-0, Gordon Head continued to attack Villa, however its offence came at the expense of its defence and Jamie Zroback managed to add to the Villa total with just minutes to go.
After Taylor hit the post and Brandon Knox just missed on a breakaway, Zroback received a nice through-ball from Peters and fired a shot to the keeper’s left for the final goal of the game.
Four goals is the most scored by Villa in one game this year but Zroback wanted to talk more about the team’s defence.
“One of the key points of our success right now is we’ve got the least goals against in the entire league. Our whole back line as well as the midfield gets the credit including keeper Matt Liknes.
“Having Scott Hobson, Dean Thorsell and Joel Harry when he’s playing, really solidifies our defence,” he added, “and lately David Bertrand has played well for us.”
Villa has picked a great time to be peaking as the team, after a first-round bye, enters Jackson Cup play.
This week it will meet with Cowichan United FC2 who earlier toppled Division One’s Juan de Fuca. Villa travels to Duncan for its first Jackson Cup appearance at 2 pm on Saturday, February 25 on the Chesterfield pitch.
