Carihi Tyees senior boys soccer team continued its stellar season with a second tournament victory.
On Friday, on home field, the Tyees enjoyed a very well fought game against an excellent St. John Brebeuf side from Abbotsford. The game remained scoreless and eventually went to a shoot out which Carihi won.
The Tyees went onto to win games against the Carihi B team and Timberline before taking on a very strong Gulf Islands side in what turned out to be Saturday’s final.
Gulf Islands was the stronger team in the opening 10-15 minutes, but Tyees keeper Collin Massie was sharp to all efforts and led the team well with his distribution.
Despite some hard work, the Tyees couldn’t take control of the game. Defensively, Aidan Anderson, Anthony Vigneron, Tyler Kelly, Carter Colblenz and Alex Desrochers kept the game tight, but the Tyees couldn’t seem to find much space to work the ball.
As the game wore on, a few tactical changes seem to benefit Carihi forwards and their more direct play began to cause some discomfort for the Gulf Island defence.
Sure enough, after 17 minutes, Carihi counter-attacked well, getting the ball up to striker Zach Tillapaugh for a partial breakaway. Tillapaugh showed his strength to hold off the opposing back line and slipped the ball past the out-coming keeper.
Tillapaugh took a beating in the game but showed great character to pick himself up each and every time. Evan Farmer, returning from injury, also performed an admirable job up front and provided a buffer for the tough but fair Gulf Island defence.
The second half saw similar intensity and the game was tightly fought. Another explosive counter with great passing led to the second goal of the game.
Smart interlocking play from Tillapaugh and midfielder Kevin Shelswell led to a lobbed attempt from the midfielder. Shelswell’s effort looked to be going high, but ended up dipping just underneath the crossbar to give Carihi a 2-0 lead.
Gulf Islands then went to three at the back in hope of mounting some offence. Ironically this simply allowed Carihi more space to attack and midfielders, Alex Foge, Karson Kroetsch and Jason Fawkes caused lots of problems.
League Play
Carihi claimed first place in league action last week with a comfortable win over a young but hard-working GP Vanier squad from Courtenay.
The Tyees have now won all six league games and have one more on Oct. 22, before they head into the playoff.
Overall, the Tyees’ record is 16 wins, two ties and no losses. The team hopes to defend both its North Island title and Island Championship, which the team won last year in a dramatic penalty shoot-out.
The provincials will be held in Vancouver in late November.