KAMLOOPS – The  2000-plus fans crammed inside Hillside Stadium came away happy Friday night as the Thompson Rivers WolfPack men's soccer team took down the visiting UNBC Timberwolves by a score of 2-1.
 
Patrick Izett tallied a goal and an assist on the night with Ryan Lewis adding the other marker for TRU. Loic Benquet scored for UNBC with Kensho Ando providing a great assist.
 
A first half that saw both teams struggling to find their footing in the contest ended with the score 0-0, although the Timberwolves held the slight edge in shots at 6-4.
 
TRU broke the game open in the 65th minute when Lewis scored his fourth goal of the young season. Izett worked the ball down the flank and put a cross into the box that Lewis was able to bundle into the back of the net.
 
UNBC bounced back after conceding the goal and nearly tied the game almost immediately. Michael Henman, who scored six goals in two games last weekend, slipped in a ball to Connor Lewis but Jackson Gardner in the WolfPack net came rushing out to make the stop.
 
After more UNBC pressure the WolfPack were able to nab an insurance marker in the 80th minute. A turnover deep in the Timberwolves half found its way onto the foot of Izett who calmly chipped the ball over Daniel Zadravec and into the back of the net.
 
"Patty has been really solid all year so far," said WolfPack head coach John Antulov. "You can see what he can do, he's been scoring goals and assisting. That's what we need from Patrick, he's our offensive leader and it's huge for us if he's doing the right things."
 
That insurance marker proved to be the game winner after the Timberwolves refused to go away without a fight.

Just two minutes after Izett's goal Kensho Ando – the 2021 Canada West assists leader – played a beautiful ball into the path of Benquet who brought the game back to within one.
 
"At the end of the day we knew it was going to be a fight with UNBC, it always is," said Antulov. "Steve always has them battling and fighting, they never stopped even after we got that second goal they came right back. These are the games that we have to learn to win, sometimes it's not always going to be pretty, you just have to battle and we were able to do that."
 
From there the WolfPack were able to see out the end of the game and take the final score 2-1 to the delight of the WolfPack faithful.
 
"It's huge – we never used to get crowds like this – even last weekend without students we still had 500 or 600 fans out. It's great to get the support for our players, it's nice to see the students starting to come out and it just pumps the guys up. Why wouldn't you want to play in front of 2000 fans, it's fantastic."
 
These two teams will do battle again Saturday night at Hillside with a scheduled kickoff of 7:45 p.m.