VOYAGEURS KEEP WOLVES AT BAY AND GRAB VALUABLE POINTS IN STANDINGS
GRANDE PRAIRIE – The Portage College Voyageurs' season is back on track. A week after sliding off the rails in a pair of competitive but ultimately disappointing losses, Head Coach Macky Singh's squad righted the ship (to mix metaphors), beating the host Northwestern Polytechnic Wolves twice in less than 24 hours, 3-0 on September 13 and 3-2 on September 14. The pair of victories evened the Voyageurs record at 2-2 and put them right back in the thick of things in the ultra-competitive ACAC northern division.
"To be able to come away with six points, that was our goal. We wanted to get ourselves back on track," said Singh, noting that every point matters this year with all seven teams in the North being evenly matched. Portage now sits third in the division after four games.
On Saturday afternoon, the visitors grabbed an early 1-0 lead on a Dominic Douglas marker and made it stand up. Michael Musanza's goal in the 70th minute helped to provide some breathing room, but Singh noted that he wasn't able to relax until Ridwan Olatunji added some insurance in the 86th minute.
"At 1-nil, the game could've gone either way," he said. "When we got the second one, it was good but then we kinda needed the third one just to finish the game."
If Saturday's game caused a few heart arrhythmias for the coach and Voyageur fans, Sunday's rematch was a full-blown cardiac arrest. Down 1-0 early in the contest, the Voyageurs rebounded nicely, with Taylor Bridger potting his third and fourth goals of the season (both on free kicks) and Gourgy Akuei scoring in the 79th minute to take a commanding 3-1 lead. "Commanding" is probably overstating it, however, as Barauh Al-Slaa notched his second of the game and the Wolves began to roar.
"And then we went into a situation where we panicked, we really panicked," said Singh. We were not in good shape. Players were making basic errors and technically we were not doing that well...And then they got a free kick in the last minute."
Fortunately for the visitors, the Wolves missed the net and the final whistle blew a few seconds later, allowing the Voyageurs to escape with the valuable victory.
As they prepare for another tough weekend in Edmonton Sept. 20-21 against The King's University and NAIT, Singh knows his troops have lots to work on – but also lots to celebrate. The squad is in third place in the division, Bridger is tied for third in league scoring and is leading an offense that is already ahead of last year's – after only four games.
"To be able to score six goals on the weekend, last year we only managed to score seven goals in the entire season," underlined the veteran head coach. "We have already scored eight goals in four games, and we've only let in seven goals so far. Last year we let in 30 goals so when you look at that, that's a positive, a significant positive. So we just have to keep working hard to make sure that keeps going."
Photo credit to NWP Wolves Athletics
