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The host St. Clair Saints men’s soccer team made the most of a second chance.
Bowing out in the second round of the OCAA playoffs, the Saints hosted the CCAA championship and made school history by earning St. Clair’s first-ever medal in the sport at the national level.
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“I think to other teams, just because we were hosting, I don’t they they thought we deserved to be there,” Saints’ midfielder and captain Massimo Pollard said. “So, I think we put ourselves on the map.”
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St. Clair won three-of-four games at the eight-team tournament and narrowly missed a spot in the gold-medal final after falling to the eventual champion Douglas Royals, New Westminster, B.C., 1-0 in the semifinals on Friday.
“We had the scoring opportunities, but we couldn’t find that one or two goals,” Saints’ head coach Mike Baraslievski said of Douglas, which beat Conestoga in the final. “They have two great central defenders and a good goalie.”
But the Saints did not sulk after the loss. The team regrouped to beat Vancouver Island University 2-1 to earn a spot in the bronze-medal game against the Keyano Huskies from Ft. McMurray, Alta.
The Alberta champs, Keyano lost 3-1 to St. Clair to open the tournament and had no better luck in a rematch with the Saints claiming the bronze medal with a 4-1 victory on Saturday at Acumen Stadium.
“The start of the season, a medal was the goal and, even though it wasn’t the right colour, we knew the assignment going into the last game,” said the 22-year-old Pollard, who is a Holy Names high school product. “Right going into that final, we knew we could do something special for the school.”
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Off a free kick, Riley Drkulec drilled a shot home from just outside the 18-yard box to open the scoring and Ezra Fogal extended the Saints’ lead to 2-0 before the half.
“We have players that are capable of creating and finishing on offence,” Baraslievski said. “If you rely on just one guy, one guy can get marked out of the game and, if you’re not prepared to go to second and third options, you’re going to be frustrated the whole game. It was a group of five or six guys for us.”
Tanner Page added a pair of second-hand goals for the Saints with the only disappointment being goalie Jonathan Rondinelli losing his shutout in the 89th minute.
“The week leading up to nationals, everyone put their head down and it was time to get serious,” said the 22-year-old Pollard, who won the tournament’s exemplary leadership award and was named to the all-star team. “We still had a chance to make history and I asked the guys before the tournament that we only one guarantee one thing and that was that we gave 100 per cent with however many games we played and everyone did. That’s all you can ask for.”
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Source: https://windsorstar.com/sports/saints-earn-first-ccaa-national-medal-in-mens-soccer-by-taking-bronze
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