Windsor, Ont. - The Keyano College Huskies Men’s Soccer team needed a response Thursday and they got it.

A 2-0 victory over the Brandon University Bobcats in the Bronze Medal quarterfinal kept the Huskies’ season alive at the 2023 Canadian Collegiate Athletic Association (CCAA) Men’s Soccer National Championship in Windsor, Ont.

“A good bounce back from [Wednesday],” Head Coach Niels Slotboom said. “I think overall the boys were pretty hurt last night not making it to a potential final, but we’ve shifted our focus and the boys are upbeat.

“They had a really good game as a response to what happened last night.”

The Huskies were in charge from the opening kick-off, peppering the Bobcats’ defence and goalkeeper with shots from all angles. However, to the credit of the Manitoba champions, the Bobcats kept the Huskies at bay and thwarted several lead attempts by the Huskies in the opening half.

Despite the initial snuffing out of chances by the Bobcats, the Huskies would break through early in the second half.

In the 47th minute, James Bartha sent a quick pass to teammate Hafid Arellano, who sent him on a perfect lead ball to get past a defender. With that much space, Bartha wasn’t going to miss and made good on the 1-0 goal for the Huskies.

The Huskies’ insurance goal would come in the 63rd minute. With Arellano sending a scoring chance off the post, Bartha retained control of the ball, dribbled it past two defenders and sent a short pass across the box to Elshafi Ishaq, who angled it perfectly to beat the Bobcats’ keeper.

In these games it’s hard; this game is all about you being able to play at your own speed and at your own quality instead of dropping down to the opposition,” Head Coach Niels Slotboom said. “No offence to Brandon, but they’re not the team that we are and that was what you could see in the beginning.

“We were very dominant and then we started to slow down a little bit because we could and that’s not how we are successful.”  

Those two goals sparked the Huskies to a more confident second half, where they were able to dictate the game much more with time dwindling down and the Bobcats taking more chances to equalize the game.

“We just had to get them back on the same page, get them back to understand we play at a different level, we play at a different speed and you could see the response immediately a couple minutes into the second half with the goal,” Slotboom added.  

For players like Ishaq, there was no other option for the team but win after a performance that saw them attempt more than 30 shots in the course of the game.

“That just gives us more confidence for the next game,” he said. “I hope we do better for next game and we’re going to come hard for the third place.

“We’re just going to keep going and grinding and winning, because that’s the only option we’ve got.”  

The team was also boosted in the second half by the return of Cleisson Anklam, who missed the ACAC Championship game and Wednesday’s quarterfinal matchup but was inserted back into the lineup.

“This is a game where we could use what he is able to do currently to bring him back in and you could see a calmness right away when he arrived,” Slotboom said. “It was great and we’ll see what else we can do with him in the next couple games.”  

Friday’s action will see the Huskies compete in the second game of the day once again, challenging the Aigle D’Ahuntsic (Montreal, Que.) at 12:30pm ET/10:30am MT with the winner advancing to Saturday’s CCAA Bronze Medal game.  

 
Tournament Website 
 
Live stream