By Josh Beneteau
The Ryerson men’s soccer team clinched a berth in the Ontario University Athletics (OUA) final four with a 2-0 win over the University of Ontario Institute of Technology (UOIT) Ridgebacks Sunday afternoon.
The win came only 11 days after UOIT beat Ryerson 3-0 in regular season play. But in this game, it was Ryerson that got out ahead early and didn’t let up.
Ryerson look the lead only 16 minutes in with a goal from Martin Dabrowski. After a UOIT defender failed to clear the ball, Dabrowski walked in and fired a shot into the lower right corner of the net.
The second goal came in the extra time of the first half. A scramble in front of the net saw players from both sides swinging at the ball. Somehow, it ended up on the foot of Luka Lee who finished the play off to give Ryerson the 2-0 lead.
“We knew today, after losing to them last time, that we would have to come out 10 times harder,” midfielder Nick Lambis said. “And we did, especially in the first half.”
The wind played a major part of the second half, with both teams struggling to get anywhere near the goal. Ryerson took out Lambis along with Jackson Tooke, Viktor Anastasov and Marko Miketic and replaced them with more defensive minded players like Michael Velasquez and Stephen Piliotis.
Associate coach Filip Prostran said that the team defence was good and credited a full week of practice for the improvement.
“We haven’t had a week of practice in a long time considering there was 16 games this year,” Prostran said. “This week we went back to the basics and the clean sheet is credited to an overall improved team defence.”
The team will now travel to Hamilton next weekend to compete in the OUA final four at Ron Joyce Stadium. They will play the McMaster Mauraders in the semi-final on Saturday.
Update: In a previous version of this story, it was stated that the OUA final four would take place at Tim Hortons field. The location was changed on Monday, Oct. 27.
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