KAMLOOPS – Make it two-for-two for the Thompson Rivers WolfPack men's soccer team as they sailed past the visiting UVic Vikes by a score of 3-0 inside Hillside Stadium on Saturday night.
 
Josh Banton, Ryan Lewis and Patrick Izett all tallied for the WolfPack, with Jackson Gardner recording his second clean sheet of the young season. Harjot Nijjar in the UVic net was the standout for the Vikes with the fourth-year goalkeeper making three outstanding saves on the night.
 
After taking a 2-0 victory over the UBC Thunderbirds last night, the win over UVic wrapped up the perfect opening weekend of the season for a WolfPack team that will host the U SPORTS Championships inside Hillside Stadium this November.
 
"I am absolutely happy, those were two tough games," said WolfPack head coach John Antulov. "UVic played really hard tonight, they were really physical and well organized. The first half was a battle, but we changed things up a bit and our guys were able to get that first goal which opened things up a bit for us. The guys were able to create some opportunities and we were able to capitalize on the chances that we got."
 
A back-and-forth first half ended in a stalemate. TRU held much of the play early but Nijjar came up big time and time again to keep things even. The Vikes were able to work their way into the game at the tail end of the second half and had their best chance of the night off a great pass from Jose Sagaste to Nick Park, but Gardner shut the door to send the teams into the break even.
 
A TRU goal in the 53rd minute of play blew the game wide open. After sustained WolfPack pressure resulted in a corner kick, Marco Favaro whipped in a cross that Banton met with a thundering header to power into the back of the net.
 
15 minutes later TRU doubled their lead when Jost Hausendorf, who has recently returned from a lengthy injury layoff, chipped in a perfect ball onto the head of Lewis who made no mistake in scoring his second goal in as many games.
 
The 'Pack rounded out their scoring just minutes later when Izett sent in a curling effort from just inside the box that Nijjar had no chance to stop. From there the WolfPack ran out the rest of the clock for the victory.
 
A key to the game for the 'Pack came at halftime when they made some changes to their lineup to swap in some fresh legs as the team was able to showcase its depth in attacking options.
 
"We've got probably six or seven guys that we can rotate quite a bit, you can throw Darupad Sharma in there and a couple other guys as well that can jump into those positions," said Antulov. "If something's not working you can adjust and change and the guys coming in are doing a fantastic jo,b so it really gives us that opportunity to have the depth that we can mix it up and change it up. We haven't had that in the past so to have that now is huge."
 
The Vikes will stay out on the road next weekend when they head to Prince George for a pair of games against the UNBC Timberwolves on September 2 and 3.
 
For TRU the win marks a second-straight shutout for the team who are flying both offensively and defensively to start the season. They will hit the road next weekend for games against the UFV Cascades and Trinity Western Spartans.
 
"I'm a defensive guy so for me clean sheets are fantastic," said Antulov. "Our backline and goalkeeping has been solid and we also have huge depth in our backline as well so to be able to get those clean sheets is huge, it builds confidence. We know we have a really strong defensive team and we just have to continue to build on that and as long as we're scoring goals then hopefully more weekends like this come."