Skip to content

TWU Spartans men’s soccer team fights UBC Okanagan to a draw

Game postponed due to smoke from forest fires
13312782_web1_180828-LAT-SPORTS-Joel-Waterman
TWU’s Joel Waterman (Aldergrove). Supplied

Trinity Western third-year midfielder Jacob Low (Port Moody, B.C.) scored a 65th-minute marker to help the Spartans men’s soccer team to a 1-1 draw with UBC Okanagan in TWU’s season-opener Monday.

The game had been postponed from Saturday due to smoke from the forest fires in B.C.

Trailing by a goal, Low connected on a left-to-right cross from Josh Hardy (Burnaby, B.C.), volleying his offering home from six yards out.

Despite the Spartans holding a 6-1 edge in shots on the goal, the Langley, B.C.-side solved UBCO keeper Nicholas Reitsma just once. TWU also had a 14-5 advantage in total shots.

The Heat’s Corbin Beauchemin opened the scoring in the 55th minute.

The first half provided very little in terms of scoring chances as the Heat didn’t record a shot on target while the Spartans had just two.

It wasn’t until the 56th minute that the Heat got their first shot on goal but they made it count. Off a corner, the ball dropped to second-year midfielder Corbin Beauchemin 10 yards out and he made no mistake firing it into the bottom left corner. Fifth-year defender Shaun Pilcher picked up the assist after connecting first on Nikhil Redyy’s ccorner.

TWU’s Joel Waterman (Aldergrove, B.C.), Vito Poletto (Calgary) and Scott Poffenroth (Calgary) were shown yellow cards, while the Heat’s Tyler Dhillon and Jayden Jordan also saw yellow.

TWU Head Coach Mike Shearon said the Spartans men’s soccer team needs to “continue to refine our attacking movements and take our chances.”

“I’m glad we could come back after being down 1-0, but we probably should have gotten a little bit more out of the game considering the way we played,” Shearon said.

“It’s an okay start and to put a positive spin on it, we earned one more point (in Kelowna) than we did last year.”

The Spartans were also scheduled to play Thompson Rivers this past weekend, but that game was also postponed and will be played later in the season.

The Spartans return to Langley, for their home-opener Friday against Victoria at Chase Office Field. Kickoff is at 7 p.m. (PT). The game will be streamed live at www.canadawest.tv.

READ MORE: Off to a good start: TWU women’s Spartans take preseason opener

READ MORE: Trinity Western men’s and women’s volleyball teams have won a combined 19 matches