WOLFPACK FINISH FIFTH WITH PENALTY KICK VICTORY IN MENS CLASSIFICATION
 

For Immediate Release: November 8, 2008

Kamloops-Its not often that you get a lot of excitement in a classification match, but that is what happened in the Men's match at the Big Kahuna/Adidas Canadian College Soccer 2008 Nationals.

The hometown Thompson Rivers University WolfPack needed penalty kicks to claim fifth place over the Quebec Champion FX Garneau Elans. 

The Elans scored two goals in the last minute to tie things at 2.  They went to immediate penalty kicks where the WolfPack won 3-2.

" We aim to please," joked WolfPack co-head coach Sean Wallace afterwards  "We want to provide the fans with exciting soccer and thats what they saw."

The WolfPack scored early--very early in this match--30 seconds in.  3rd year midfielder Casey Cullen  (Kamloops, BC)  shot a lazer past a stunned Elans keeper Francois Huffy  (2nd year, Quebec, Que).

It stayed that way until the 80 th minute when Conor Doherty (2nd year, forward, Kamloops, BC) was able to head the ball into the net.  It followed some dominating play by TRU.  

"We played some good possession soccer in this one," said Wallace  "Our downfall against Algonquin (3-1 overtime loss on Thurs, Nov 6) was that we took a lead and sat on it.  You can't do that against good teams.  Today, it almost came back and bit us."

After Doherty scored,  FX Garneau took the kick off and marched down the field unmolested and beat TRU keeper Allan Connor (3rd year, Salmon Arm). Forward Justin Beausoleil (2nd year, Victoriaville, Que) getting credit.

Just before time expired,  Elans player of the match, Paul-Andre Valee (3rd year, Ste.Foy, Quec) beat Connor again to set up the sudden death penalty kick.

In the penalty kicks: TRU scored three times--OliverSchwuchuw (5 th year, Smithers, BC),  James Byra (5 th year, onnpSardis, BC) and Conor Doherty (2nd year, Kamloops, BC)  scored.

"It was hard to get up for a fifth and sixth place game, " said Byra afterwards, playing his final university game.  "But I am glad we won."

CORNER KICKS: Kyle Bowman, 4 th year forward, Kamloops BC  was the WolfPack Rookie of the year.  TRU played without allstar defender Adam Dodgson (3rd year Kamloops, BC), Forward Tim Unaegbu (3rd year, Port Coquitlam, BC) and midfielder Seb Gardner (2nd year, Vernon BC).  Dodgson was suffering from concussion like symptoms. The other two were sitting out suspentions for two yellow and a red card respectively.
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