After a two-week absence due to the ferry schedule, Powell River Villa returned to soccer action last week with a trip to Victoria to play Juan de Fuca FC 3A.
The schedule to Vancouver Island is much more favourable than the one island teams have to take and Villa was able to run down in the morning and return the same day.
A full squad of 16 game-starved players were on the bus and quickly got to work against the ninth seed in the 3A division.
Villa’s three-five-two lineup was an all out attack that yielded plenty of chances but no goals in the early going.
Juan de Fuca defended well but Villa’s Jake Kenmuir, Michael Rowley and Billy Bagiopoulos, off the crossbar, narrowly missed their opportunities.
Kenmuir did finally get the game’s first goal when he tapped in a nice cross from Curtis McMillan at 25 minutes to give Villa the lead at the half.
It was more of the same in the second half with Villa controlling the play and again getting chances to score.
Kenmuir added his second of the game at 60 minutes with the help of Ben Elliot who crossed the ball to him.
The comfortable two-goal lead became three when Elliot spotted Rowley in front of the goal and his cross was controlled nicely and perfectly volleyed in at 70 minutes.
The three-goal lead allowed coach Chris McDonough to use the entire lineup in the game which did create a more level playing field as Juan de Fuca threw caution to the wind to break up Matt Liknes’ clean sheet.
As a result, Liknes was called upon to make several key saves in the last 20 minutes but was solid in getting the job done.
“We had a lot of subs so we got our squad players in,” said McDonough, “which is good for team morale.”
Captain Dean Thorsell was still sitting out a suspension but Villa never missed a beat with the appointment to another veteran.
“Robbie [Devlin] had a fantastic game patrolling the midfield,” said McDonough, “and he’s really stepped up his play this year.”
It was also a strong two-goal performance from Kenmuir who, with his knack for the net, is among the league’s leaders with eight.
“He’s a little older,” said McDonough, “and he’s really coming into his own. He’s a natural scorer and he gets his goals and he’s been key for us this year.”
This was a nice result for Villa which joins the top five teams in the division separated by a mere six points.
Next up is Castaways. “They are coming up a day early,” said McDonough, “which is great because we get a bit of luxury with a home game. Nobody else is coming up so this is great for us.”
It’s also a very big match for the two teams who are tied for third and have played the same number of games.
“Every game now is pretty much a must win,” explained McDonough, “because everybody is...getting closer at the top.”
Fans will want to take in this exciting battle at 1:30 pm on Saturday, February 1 at Timberlane park.
