Five soccer seasons have passed in the blink of an eye for UNBC Timberwolves forward Francesco Bartolillo.
From rookie apprentice to stalwart veteran, the 23-year-old from Calgary took time after playing the last home game of his U Sports career to reflect on how different it is to run with one of the top teams in the division after years of struggling to bring respectability to a T-wolves program still in its infancy the day he joined.
"When I first came we were kind of a group of misfits, guys who just found their way to UNBC through some means, and that's not normally the standard path to get to university," said Bartolillo, who passed Tofa Fakunle this season as the T-wolves' all-time goal-scoring leader with 15. "We had this group of guys who were all hungry to show they could compete at this level and prove to the people who doubted them that we could be a playoff team and more."
No doubt, Bartolillo and the T-wolves took their lumps in the first three years of his university career when UNBC was cannon fodder for most of its Canada West opponents. In his first year the T-wolves finished with a 3-9-0 record. The following year they went 1-10-1, followed in 2016 by a 4-10-2 season. Their big breakthrough came last year on the final day of the season when the T-wolves (5-5-6) claimed their first playoff berth.
Now, heading into the final weekend of the season, they've lost just three games all year, having won five and tied five, and are comfortably entrenched in third place in a tough Pacific Division, with a chance to solidify their standing Friday and Saturday in Abbotsford in a two-game set against the Fraser Valley Cacades.
"Our strength derives from how good our group is, how good the people are, and that's something very unique to anything I've been a part of and now to see us in my fifth year really dominate games and compete with the very best, it's fantastic," said Bartolillo. "We've come from a team that was always just wanting to compete to a team that goes into games now thinking that we are the favourite."
The T-wolves got to within nine minutes of defeating the UBC Thunderbirds Sept. 29 in Vancouver. The T-birds came back to tie it but only one other team in the conference this season has been able to do what the T-wolves did that day.
Sunday's game ended in a 1-0 win for UNBC over the UBC Okanagan Heat and that was the Prince George farewell for two other five-year T-wolf veterans - defenders Conrad Rowlands and Gordon Hall.
"It feels like the time just flashed in front of me," said the 22-year-old Rowlands. "It was nice to end with a win for our fans to set ourselves up for the playoffs and instill a little confidence in us going into our last weekend.
"At the end of the game I was thinking about my first time stepping onto the pitch in Prince George and the difference between then and now. Huge strides have been made and the program is just getting better and better. My first year we were a young team, just hanging on by the skin of our teeth but now we have a sure style in how we play and method to how we do things."
Under two different head coaches - Alan Alderson and the current Steve Simonson - Rowlands has played almost every position except goalie.
"I've had lots of emotions, lots of position changes and lots of overcoming adversity," Rowlands said. "I'm just happy to be able to finish my career here at UNBC.
"We're getting good recruits now, lots from the Victoria area, guys who are able to come to our squad and make a big impact."
Hall, 23, a two-time Canada West all-star, came up to UNBC in 2014 along with Rowlands, both having grown up as youth soccer teammates in Chilliwack.
"Honestly, I didn't even know where Prince George was and came up here to see what it was like and I've loved it ever since," said Hall. "It's just amazing to be around the community and I'm just proud to be a Timberwolf.
"It took us awhile to get up and going but over the last couple of years we've finally been able to build a program where teams have to worry about what we're doing. We've finally been able to grow something here and hopefully the word will get out."
Seven other players are graduating UNBC this school year and don't plan on returning for their final year of university eligibility, including forward Matt Jubinville; midfielders Josh McAvoy, Liam Stewart and Jesse Rake; defenders Emmanuel Drame, and Clay Kiiskila; and goalie Scott Brown.
