Powell River United O35 Soccer Club took to the pitch recently, looking to advance to the next round of the Tony Grover Cup with a win over visiting Victoria Vantreights. Going into the game United knew that this was going to be a hard fought match and that Vantreights would be its toughest challenge yet.
The game started with the visitors putting United on its heels and having to defend for the first 15 minutes. United slowly regained its form and began to even the tides by creating chances on goal.
The first goal of the game came from a nice through ball sent from Ross Simpson to Lee Illing who hammered a shot into the left side of the net beating Vantreights’ goalie and giving United a 1-0 lead.
Vantreights immediately pushed back and created a few good chances on net resulting in a goal tying the game 1-1.
Both teams battled back and forth with good ball possession and hard defensive tackles. Late in the first half United’s Julian Welp ran down the wing and crossed a nice ball to Tony Carroll who put it into the top of the net giving United a 2-1 lead for the halftime break.
The second half was much the same as the first with both teams getting into hard tackles and equally creating some chances on net. United was first to score in the second half to take a 3-1 lead when Simpson took the ball and beat a defender as he cut across the net and slotted it into the opposite side of the goal.
From there it seemed that the visitors had tired and United took the chance to take it to them. Dean Piccinin was was next to score as he beat a couple of defenders and buried United’s fourth goal of the game. United was able to make some substitutions to get everyone on the pitch just in time for a goal from Aaron Cramb. Player and coach Tony Leach sent a nice corner kick right onto the head of Cramb who placed it neatly into the net giving United a 5-1 lead.
The final whistle blew and United now moves onto the semifinals of the cup. It takes on the University of Victoria Alumni at 1:30 pm on Saturday, March 17 at Sunset Park.
