The Huskies men’s soccer club picked up four points in the Canada West Prairie Division standings during a home-and-home series against the Winnipeg Wesmen last weekend to open their regular season.

The Dogs tied their first match of the series 2-2 on Sept. 7 at the Winnipeg Soccer Complex, garnering the first of their four points.

Despite several scoring opportunities for both teams, the game was deadlocked at zero after the first half. Finally, Dogs second-year striker Brett Levis opened the scoring in the 64th minute. He fired his first goal of the game past Wesmen goalkeeper Tyson Farago to give his team the 1-0 lead.

Soon after the Levis goal, Wesmen head coach Pedro Daza called for a substitution to put midfielder Yiannis Tsalatsidis into the game. The exchange paid off as Tsalatsidis potted his first goal of the season to tie the game 1-1.

Ten minutes later, Levis broke into the Wesmen end and scored his second of the match. The Huskies would hold that lead until extra time when Wesmen Scott Ansell wrangled a rebound off of his own teammate’s free kick and tapped the ball past Huskies keeper Mark Diakiw to finalize the draw.

The two teams met again Sep. 9 at PotashCorp Park in Saskatoon for the second game of the series. Huskies head coach Bryce Chapman could tell his players wanted to another chance to prove they were the better team.

“When the guys walked off of the field on Friday you could tell they were disappointed with the game and that’s a positive thing that this young group wasn’t satisfied with a tie,” Chapman said.

The Dogs dominated the first half of play in the weekend’s second game, keeping the ball almost exclusively on Winnipeg’s half of the field.

Huskies rookie striker Wilson Ntigne found himself in the right position in the 32nd minute of the match. Levis lobbed a free kick towards the front of the Winnipeg goal where Huskies defenceman Sam Mylymok jumped up to head the ball towards the net. The ball rebounded off the post and deflected to Ntigne, who quickly headed the wild ball into the back of the net.

Ntigne was ecstatic. He had just scored his first goal as a Huskie soccer player and wasn’t about to let the moment pass. Ntigne ran to the crowd of excited fans sitting adjacent to the field with his arms in the air in celebration of the goal. His teammates followed in excited pursuit and Ntigne finished the celebration with a final slide onto his knees as he pointed to the sky.

“I was one of the Huskies’ heroes. I was really happy and I helped my team do what we were supposed to do,” Ntigne said after the game.

The second half of the game slowed in pace and goals. Chapman admits his team lost their momentum in the second half.

“You could tell it was day four of a four-day road trip,” he said following the game. “Fatigue definitely set in today. The way we play is very up tempo. We want to play in the opponent’s end and that takes a lot of work. The second half was a bit slower, but sometimes you have to win ugly.”

The Dogs picked up three more points in the 1-0 victory and, after one week of play, Saskatchewan is in second place in the Canada West Prairie Division, only behind Alberta.

[box type=”info”]Your next chance to see the men’s soccer team play is Sep. 16 as they host the UNBC Timberwolves on field seven in PotashCorp Park.[/box]

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Photo: Raisa Pezderic/The Sheaf