MONTREAL – The result, at the end of the day, was almost secondary to the accomplishment as the University of Calgary Dinos wrapped up a historic 2019 soccer season with a 3-2 defeat at the hands of the York Lions in the consolation semifinal of the U SPORTS championship in Montreal.
It ends a magical run to the Dinos' first national tournament in history, where they showed well in difficult circumstances and marked a major step forward for the program.
"This was an excellent experience for our university and team," said Dinos head coach
Brendan O'Connell. "We made history this year, even if we didn't win a game this time around."
"Our character got us here, like our coach said," said captain Cristiano de Carvalho, named player of the match after his final university fixture. "I'm a fifth-year now so I'm done, but hopefully the boys coming up next year can bleieve they can make it to nationals and play against great teams like York and the rest of the great teams here."
Calgary's
Derek Brust chipped in a pair of goals in a losing cause for the Dinos, whose season concludes with an overall record of 9-9-1 in Canada West regular season, playoff and U SPORTS championship play.
Brust opened the scoring the 26th minute of play, before York erupted for a trio of second half markers. Yuma got the Lions on the board in the 61st minute. Third-year forward Milan Beader scored his first goal of the tournament in the 75th minute, followed by Yuma's game-winning strike just 1:05 later. Brust's second goal of the game cut the York advantage to one, but veteran keeper Mike Argyrides kept Calgary at bay turning aside seven of the nine shots he faced.
At the other end of the field,
Jake Ruschkowski made three saves in the loss.
"I am pleased with team's result today," said York head coach Carmine Isacco. "It's important to compete at all times and although yesterday's game was emotionally and mentally draining, our players played well in order to eliminate a very motivated and strong opponent."
Nike Top Performers
Calgary : Cristiano De Carvalho
York : Merci Yuma
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