Alan Alderson expects the growing pains to continue for the UNBC Timberwolves men's soccer team in their second year in the Canada West Conference of the CIS.
The men's head coach said he's optimistic the T-wolves will show more spark then they did in their inaugural season, but they're still the youngest team in the league from both an age and experience perspective.
"Last year was about survival and defending and trying not to get killed," said
Alderson. "This year we're going to continue to build on trying to be tougher to score on, but we're also going to bring some stuff forward."
Alderson said there's a crop of seven offensive-minded players who should be able to provide a few goals for the team this year. In their first season of Canada West action, fifth-year Danny Dell and fourth-year Sourosh Amani provided five of the team's eight goals. Neither Dell nor Amani are back this year, but, Alderson said players like Cheona Edzerza, Tofa Fakunle, Jake Vickers, Brett Bobier, Tyson Hunter and Amedee Cimana could spark the offence anytime.
"All of our attacking players are really fun to watch," said Alderson. "Even though we're
really young you're going to see some flair out of us you didn't get to see last year. We'll be tougher to score on this year and we're going to start creating a lot more scoring chances."
The majority of the T-wolves team is made up of first- and second-year players, including Calgary Foothills transplants Vickers and Fakunle. UNBC has no fifth-year players and four players heading into their fourth season of post-secondary action.
The T-wolves finished with a 1-13 record last season, their only victory a 3-0 romp over the Cougars at Mount Royal in Calgary, which snapped a 12-game losing skid.
After this weekend's games against the Saskatchewan Huskies (Friday night) and the Alberta Golden Bears on Sunday at noon at the North Cariboo men's soccer field, the T-wolves will head into their bye week as they prepare for home games Sept. 20 and 22 against the other sophomore teams in the league, the Winnipeg Wesmen and the Cougars.
Friday night the T-wolves lost 7-0 to the Huskies. See Monday's Citizen for a full recap of the the T-wolves' games against Saskatchewan and Alberta.
In women's soccer Friday night in Chilliwack, the University of the Fraser Valley Cascades defeated the UNBC Timberwolves 2-0 in the Canada West regular-season opener for both teams.
