KAMLOOPS – The Thompson Rivers WolfPack men's soccer team took care of business Friday night, capturing a 2-0 victory over the UFV Cascades inside Hillside Stadium.
 
The 'Pack played most of the night with a two-man advantage after UFV saw one player ejected from the game in 25th minute for accumulating two yellow cards followed shortly by another ejection just ten minutes later after a straight red card.
 
"The cards happened because we were using our pace to go at them," said WolfPack head coach John Antulov. "We've been trying to tell our guys that we have so much speed on the outside that we need to use that pace and that's what happened on the first two yellows. We used our pace to go at players and then just kept it going and going."
 
Mikkel Rosenlund and Dylan Hooper scored for the 'Pack with Patrick Izett registering an assist.
 
Jackson Cowx was the story of the game for Fraser Valley, making four saves in the losing effort. In the other net Svyatik Artemenko earned his second-straight shutout for TRU.
 
The WolfPack controlled play early and that dominance only increased after first Bhagvir Sidhu and then Adam Szymanski were ejected from the game for Fraser Valley. Valiant UFV defending and a couple strong stops by Cowx sent the teams into the halftime break scoreless despite TRU firing 12 shots towards net.
 
The WolfPack finally found their breakthrough in the 63rd minute. Captain Patrick Izett whipped in a corner kick that Rosenlund rose highest for to nod in the header for his first of the season.
 
Fraser Valley refused to go away without a fight however and earned themselves a couple set pieces in dangerous positions before TRU got their insurance marker.
 
Dangerous all night long, Michael Ojo crossed a ball into Jonathan Rinaldi who unleashed a shot that hit the post but bounced right to Hooper as the fith-year buried the rebound.
 
"I like the fact that we didn't take our foot off the gas pedal, we created plenty of scoring opportunities and we missed a couple clear chances but we got the two at the end there and got the result so I'm super happy," said Antulov.
 
The result was key in the Canada West playoff race as TRU moves to 3-5-1 and take sole possession of the fourth and final playoff spot in the Pacific Division. UFV meanwhile, drops to 2-7 on the season.
 
"We still have a ways to go but atleast we are seeing signs of what we can do and at the end of the day we just have to keep that going," said Antulov. "We aren't out of the woods yet, we have to keep rolling and rolling to try and get results."
 
TRU will remain at home tomorrow when they face the Trinity Western Spartans inside Hillside Stadium at 4 p.m. The Cascades meanwhile will travel to Kelowna for a game with the UBC Okanagan Heat.