Ben Finley
Alessandro Boggio - Thymos Capture
1
UBCO UBCO (1-11-2, 1-11-2)
3
Winner Thompson Rivers TRU (3-10-1, 3-10-1)
UBCO UBCO
(1-11-2, 1-11-2)
1
Final
3
Thompson Rivers TRU
(3-10-1, 3-10-1)
Winner
Score By Periods
Team 1 2 F
UBCO UBCO 1 0 1
Thompson Rivers TRU 1 2 3

Game Recap: Men's Soccer | | TRU WolfPack

Finley’s brace fires WolfPack to sweep of Heat

QUICK FIRE
  • For the second night in a row the Thompson Rivers WolfPack men's soccer team took care of business on home soil as they dumped the UBCO Heat by a score of 3-1 inside Hillside Stadium.
     
DIFFERENCE MAKERS
  • Ben Finley was electric for the WolfPack on the night, scoring a pair of goals to send TRU to victory. Abdel Coulibaly was equally impressive with a goal of his own and a crucial play on another. Matheus Lucas, Ryan Prasad and Lachlan Will added the assists with Toran Rutherford making two saves for his second-consecutive win.
  • Andrew Matsugu scored UBCO's marker off an assist from Allan Yin. Ronan Woodroffe made eight saves in the losing effort.

HOW IT HAPPENED
  • Coulibaly opened the scoring in the 20th when he took a pass from Lucas, rushed past his defender and sent a picture-perfect ball into the bottom right corner of the net.
  • The Heat responded just ten minutes later. In almost a mirror image of TRU's opener, Matsugu gathered Yin's past and sent the ball into the back of the net on the far side of Rutherford.
  • While TRU outshot the Heat 11-3 in the first half and carried much of the play, the game was all knotted up at 1-1 at the halftime break.
  • TRU came out of the halftime break firing and edged back in front ten minutes into the second half.
  • Lucas forced a turnover in the middle of the field and played the ball to Will who was bursting down the wing. Will sent a pass across goal towards Coulibaly who drew his defender to him by pretending to shoot but left the ball at the last second to run to a wide-open Finley. From there Finley made no mistake to tuck it into the open net.
  • A turning point in the game came not long after when Rutherford came up with a massive breakaway stop on Jaise Shaw to keep TRU in the lead.
  • With time running out Finley made certain that the 'Pack would secure all three points with a curling effort from the edge of the 18-yard box that flew into the top corner.
 
QUOTABLE (WolfPack head coach John Antulov)
  • "Once again it was good battle, I thought UBCO played really well tonight but our guys matched the intensity and now we are finally starting to put the ball into the back of the net. The guys that we expect to score goals are creating, they're scoring and doing all the things they need to do. We are seeing more maturity come into the team and now we just need to carry it into the next weekend."
  • ON THE PLAY OF BEN FINLEY "For Ben it's just about simplifying his game. He was going at guys, his movement and work rate were great. For him to get two goals was huge and hopefully that helps his confidence heading into the next weekend."
  • "We started out 0-6 and we just said let's forget about those and now we are 3-4-1 in our last eight and a couple of those losses should have been results our way so you are starting to see maturity and growth in this group. Overall you are starting to see the team move together, score goals and get results which brings positivity all over."

NOTABLE
  • The two-goal night was the first of Finley's WolfPack career.
  • With the win TRU moves to 3-10-1 on the season. At the time of writing They sit one win behind the UNBC Timberwolves (4-7-2) and TWU Spartans (4-6-2) for the fourth and final playoff spot in the Pacific Division.
  • TRU had 12 shots on net to UBCO's 3.

UP NEXT
  • TRU will play their final games of the regular season next weekend at home when they welcome the aforementioned TWU Spartans and the UFV Cascades to Hillside Stadium. The games take place on Saturday, Oct. 18 and Sunday, Oct. 19 at Hillside Stadium and get underway at noon.
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