KAMLOOPS – They held the run of play for nearly the entire night, but the Thompson Rivers WolfPack men's soccer team was unable to find a way past a sturdy UFV Cascades defence in a 0-0 draw.
 
"They are a strong defensive side and when you're playing against a team that's sitting back and playing compact you have to figure out a way to break them down," said WolfPack head coach John Antulov. "We had some opportunities, but the final third just wasn't working for us today."
 
TRU out-shot the Cascades by a tally of 15-5 and but were only able to direct four of those efforts on net. The WolfPack racked up the corners on the night, holding an advantage of 12-2 but were unable to truly trouble Jackson Cowx in the Cascades net.
 
"It took us a bit to get into the game but once we finally started going it was good, but we just didn't create enough to score some goals," said Antulov.
 
Cowx stopped all four shots fired his way on the night while Jackson Gardner made a pair of stops for his fourth shutout of the year.
 
The result moves the WolfPack to 7-2-2 on the year where they continue lead the Pacific Division with a winning percentage of .697%, edging out the second place UBC Thunderbirds who are at 5-3-0 and .625%. For the Cascades the result was massive for their playoff push. UFV is now 3-4-2 on the year and are within striking distance of the Trinity Western Spartans who currently occupy the fourth and final playoff spot.
 
Josh Banton had the best chance of the night in the 40th minute of play but his header off a corner kick was corralled by Cowx. Despite holding the run of play throughout the entirety of the second half, the WolfPack were unable to break down a strong Cascades defence led by Nicolas Burret and Carson Muter.
 
Before the game the 'Pack honoured  Banton, Marco Favaro,  Gardner, Jan Pirretas Glasmacher, Daniel Sagno and Darupad Sharma as graduating players that were all playing the final regular season home contest of the WolfPack careers.
 
TRU now heads out on the road for their final four regular season games and Antulov knows that those final four will be key for playoff positioning.
 
"We've got a good road team, that's something we've been working on the last couple years was making sure we had the right mentality when playing on the road. We have to make sure that we continue to build. We are sitting in a good situation now, but we can't take our foot off the gas pedal. We have to work on getting more shots on goal, on getting more crosses in."
 
The Cascades meanwhile will return to the Lower Mainland for a home-and-home set with the Trinity Western Spartans next weekend.