VOYAGEURS STILL IN THE MIX AFTER FIRST NORTHEAST REGIONAL

FORT MCMURRAY – Mission accomplished. Sort of.

The Portage College Voyageurs headed up Highway 63 last weekend hoping to kick off their futsal season on the right foot. They came home from Fort McMurray 30 hours later with one win in three games at the first Northeast Regional, not exactly what they had hoped for but enough to keep them in the mix for a spot in the ACAC championships later this winter.

After a 6-0 blowout loss to Lakeland College on Saturday afternoon, the Voyageurs righted the canoe and played a much stronger match against The King's University (TKU) in the evening, coming away with a 3-2 win. Cody Lawson scored twice and Ashton Howard-McLean netted a goal in the win.

"We were just not ready, we were not in the game and we were not prepared for the way Lakeland played as well," said Macky Singh of his team's opening match of the regional tournament. "They played an aggressive, man-to-man marking kind of set up which we struggled to manage and cope with."

The experienced head coach was much more pleased with the second game versus TKU, a close affair that went right down to the wire.

"It was really tight. We were up 2-nil and then Kings came back and tied it," recounted Singh. "And then we managed to pull away. The last three and a half minutes or so we just hunkered down and defended."

The game proved costly, however, as not one, not two, but three regulars went down to injury, making them unavailable for the game against Keyano College on Sunday and requiring Singh to demand more minutes from some of his players. That, and a three-minute lapse in concentration cost the Voyageurs dearly, as they lost 5-2 to the host squad.

"It was a pretty even game, actually," said Singh. "It was 1-1 for a long time and then in the second half, Nick our goalkeeper got picked and the opposition got a red card and we just didn't focus. We didn't concentrate and then immediately after they put three away in the space of three minutes which we then managed to bring back to 5-2. But those three minutes threw us out of the game."

Benjamin Hyrsky and Bjorn Goolie scored in a losing cause. With a 1-2 record after the first Northeast Regional, the Voyageurs still have a chance to qualify for the futsal championships if they put up a stronger showing at the next regional tournament hosted by TKU in early February. Singh knows what his players need to work on if they hope for better results in three weeks' time.

"This weekend's definitely given us a lot of things to work on….We'll prepare for (Lakeland), making sure that it's gonna be a battle and it's gonna be a man-to-man game," he said. "And then the other two games we've just got to get back to our normal game but we need to make sure they focus because of injuries that we have. If those players are not available, then it's got to come down to fitness and stamina and that's gonna get us over the line, basically."

Photo credits to Robert Murray - Keyano Huskies Athletics