Make it three straight 'friendly' victories for the Thompson Rivers University WolfPack in men's soccer. The WolfPack downed the visiting University of Northern British Columbia Timberwolves 1-0 Friday (Aug 16) on the Warner Rentals field at Hillside Stadium.
 SYNOPSIS

The WolfPack and Timberwolves played three 30 minute periods.  UNBC was coming off matches Thursday (Aug 15) on the coast.
The lone goal came in the 25^th minute of the first period when Justin Donaldson (5 th year, midfield, Kamloops, BC)  drove down the right side and launched a ball which went upper left corner on UNBC keeper Rob Goodey.

The teams failed to score after that goal. Although both teams had some great chances.

In the 14^th minute of the second period, UNBC got a penalty kick from 40 yards out but James Stephens missed the mark.  The best chance for TRU in the second period was at the 17 th minute mark when Dylan Hooper ( 2^nd year, midfield, Winnipeg, MB) got a penalty kick and he hit the cross bar on Timberwolves keeper Daniel Zadravec.

In the third period, both teams had good scoring chances as well.  Three minutes in  Donaldson rang it off the cross bar from about 30 seconds out.  At the 27 minute mark, Theo Weismiller got a through ball and tried to break around the TRU defenders and shot just wide.

The ball came downfield and Donaldson had another opportunity but was thwarted by the third UNBC keeper of the match, Alex Dorschied.    At 28:30, Donaldson broke in and ran into Dorschied. Fortunately, both players weren't injured.
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COMMENTS BY COACH  JOHN ANTULOV:

On match:  " It is always a good battle between us and UNBC. We were both trying different line ups and trying different people.  You want to rotate everybody. It was a little scrambly.  From our side, we were scrambly for good chunks there.  We are trying to learn about each other and each other's tendencies.  I thought a lot of our young players are doing well---Jordano Pinto, Cole Rosenlund. I think Steffen Masaites, our transfer from Douglas was great. I think Denzel Marican stood out two. We have played five matches (three official preseason and two scrimmages). The young guys have come in and got a ton of playing time.
 
On play of Austrian rookie Christopher Rass:  " He is going to be good player for us. Chris was here playing with us in the Pacific Coast League. He just got off the plane this morning at 1 AM.  Trying to get him here for 30 minutes—he was a little rusty. But he will be a force for us going forward."
 
 
COMMENTS BY UNBC head coach Steve Simonson:

On Matches: " We are coming off a 10 day trip so we gave everyone limited minutes.  We learned some good things.  We tried to work on a lot of things today.  We lost about 10 seniors from last years team so we lost a lot of experience and physicality. We know that TRU is always physical and I thought we might be overmatched. We weren't today. We saw some young players come in and handle the likes of James Fraser, Justin Donaldson and Josh Banton—three of the league's premier player.  If they can do that, I think we will be OK."
 
UP NEXT:

Thompson Rivers hit the road on Saturday (Aug 17) for Vancouver, BC.  They will fly to Fresno, California for a series of exhibition matches against U.S. Universities and Colleges.  The WolfPack don't open their Canada West regular season until  August 31^st when they will host the UBC Thunderbirds on the Warner Rentals field at Hillside Stadium.
Antulov on California and helping sort out who starts, " The match against Fresno Pacific will be tough. We will be looking  at who our starting 11 will be.  The other games will see everyone in and play a lot of matches."

Antulov adds that he is about a month ahead of where the team was last year in the area of bonding and progress. That's because they didn't have any preseason matches in 2018 due to smoke in the Interior.

The Timberwolves open their Canada West campaign against the UBCO Heat. They play back to back matches at Nonis Field in Kelowna on August 23^rd and 24^th.  "We have more than 11 starters which is really exciting for us," Simonson said about going into the season. " I think the one thing have to do is change our possession into chances and chances into goals. Once we get that right, we will be OK. But it is on us to do that. There is nothing easy in this league."

All of the above regular season matches can been seen on a pay per view basis on www.CanadaWesttv.