NEWS RELEASES

VIU Women's Soccer
comments by Anup Kang

Saturday Oct. 17

VIU vs Langara Falcons

Final
VIU -1, Langara -1

Two of the top ranked teams in Canada battled at Mariner Field  Saturday under heavy rain, Langara ranked 2nd in Canada took an early lead in 5th minute of play, Mariners ranked 5th started to settle near the end of the first half and had couple of good opportunities to equalize but Falcons keeper came up big.

VIU came out with stronger play in the second half and almost tied the game on number of occasions, Emily Nicholson was alone on the keeper from a Kate Flynn cross but shot over the net, Flynn tied the game in the 75th minute when she hit a rocket from 10 yards, forward Jolene Nagy filling in goal for regular Hollis Roberts made a tremendous save to keep the score deadlocked.

"We came out real slow at the start and Langara is too good a team for that but at the half we talked about what we needed to do and the players responded, like I said before this a real special group of ladies, Aileen Holder again showed why she is one of the top players in the league"
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Sunday Oct. 18

VIU vs Capilano

Final
VIU -5, Cap -2

In the last league games of the year and final home game for seniors Aileen Holder and Angela Losch the Mariner's wanted to make sure this was a special day and they didn't disappoint getting their biggest goal output of the season. Defender Heather Iverson, starting up front as a forward made it 1-0 VIU in the 11th minute when she split two defenders and easily beat the Blues keeper, Mariner's had some quality chances to add to the lead but it stayed 1-0 at the half.
Second half started with a flurry of goals, Blues tied it shortly after the restart but the Mariner's Brittany Shillingford tied it 2 minutes later when in the 55th minute she beat the keeper on a breakaway, Blues once again tied 5 minutes later but Shillingford again on a breakaway made it 3-2 for VIU in the 65th, Carly Willgress made it 4-2 when Shillingford made a brilliant run and placed a nice cross for Willgress to tap into the open net, Andrea Strebel off a Kate Flynn corner made it 5-2, freshman Shillingford made her season debut after a pre season ankle injury.

Mariner Women are now undefeated at home in 7 games dating back to last year and have one loss in their last 14 matches overall, next up for the team is the BCCAA Provincial Finals in Coquitlam, VIU will play Kwantlen 4pm Friday October 23rd in the Quarter Finals.

"I was really happy for Brittany, she's had a tough go with the injury but she's been there supporting the group all year and what can I say about our seniors they have been pillars for this program for 5 years and I'm glad we got this win for them, Aileen, Heather Iverson, Kate and Jolene Nagy get a lot of credit and rightfully so but Steph Dean, Carly Willgress, Andrea Strebel, Angela Losch and Emily Nicholson have also been brilliant for us this year and our support group is the best we've had since I arrived three years ago, we'll get a healthy Hollis Roberts back in net next week as well"

The Mariner's end the season with 6 wins, 1 loss, 4 ties for 22 points and finish 2nd overall in points behind Langara.

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Oct 18 & 19 2009 VIU Mariners Men’s soccer team

VIU Men’s Soccer

VIU accomplished this past weekend what they set out to do from the beginning of the season. VIU entered the weekend knowing they had to win both games to finish first place and get that valuable automatic semi-final birth in the Provincials.

The first game resulted in a 2-0 win against third place Langara. Jarred Stephens lead the team with 1 goal and 1 assist. Akihiro scored the first goal of the game to get VIU started. There were also very strong performances from Tyler Merriman pushing the backline up the field, Ben Leggett and Akihiro Ishimine.

Sunday's game was against division leading Capilano Blues, who were ahead of us by 2 points in the league standings. This was an exciting day for us as a team and a program to make the final game of the season come down to first place. The game itself was a great performance by both teams, showing some excellent soccer and making it an entertaining game to be apart of. “This was one of our goals from the start of the season, to make the final game of the season against CAP mean something. The boys stepped up and finished with a 1-0 win over the National Champions to finish first place with an overall record of 7-1-3.” Yoshito Wantanabe scored his second goal of the season, coming on as a substitute and doing his job. Sunday was a great overall performance from the team and puts us right where we wanted to be going into the BC finals.