Huskies, Eagles draw in lone meeting of ACAC regular season

For the second time in as many days, the Keyano Huskies men's soccer team came away with mixed feelings from the soccer pitch.  

A 1-1 draw against The King's University Eagles saw them pick up their first point in the standings though the feeling after was that they left two more on the board as well. 

"[We] struggled to keep our game plan going," said head coach Niels Slotboom. "I think the guys lost it at certain points in both halves where we strayed away from what we were doing and what we were successful in. 

"I thought the start was very good. We had a lot of pressure and a lot of positive possession, which is great, but then we let it sneak away from us and we gave King's a chance to get into the game." 

Pulling ahead early, the Huskies forced a turnover off a clear from the goalkeeper. Continuing over his excellent play from Saturday, Caleb Kehler played a lead pass down the wing, chased it down himself, and then centered it to a small crowd of three players.

It was in that small crowd that Dashawn Kennedy got his foot on it first, catching it at the perfect deflection to confuse the goalkeeper. 

Slotboom was happy to see one of his attacking players find their footing early in the season and hoped for their continued success.  

"He always works hard, which is never the issue," Slotboom said of Kennedy. "Now to finally get a result, that is obviously what you want for a striker. 

"Everybody that is an attacking player if you score goals you gain confidence and usually that trickles into further success so hopefully that's what's happening right now." 

The Eagles would claw their way back into the game though later in the first half. Forcing a turnover in the midfield, the Eagles marched down with an even three-on-three matchup with the Huskies' defence. However, the Eagles worked quickly to exploit a gap in the defence and Raphael Duarte buried the chance past the goalkeeper to level the game. 

In the wake of the goal, Slotboom said his team handled the setback well initially, but soon returned to ways not conducive to gaining the advantage. 

"That's going to be a big learning piece for us here to make sure that we maintain our style of play and our positioning throughout the game, not just for moments," he said.  

Continuing for the rest of the first half and throughout the second, neither team could secure the go-ahead goal, even with glorious opportunities at both ends. By the time the final whistle blew, there was disappointment in what felt like an opportunity missed among the Huskies. 

"To be honest, I'm quite disappointed with how we played today," said Jacob Marshall. "We dropped points in both games over the weekend. 

"We played well at times but we just didn't score with chances. It ended up costing us at the end of the day. We got one point out of two games and now we've got to bounce back and be ready for next weekend." 

Crediting Dashawn on his early goal, Marshall's thoughts returned to the overall team effort that showed well at points, but once again didn't execute at the level they expected. 

"We did play well out from the back at times, but as the game went on, our performance dropped, we didn't play our own game," said Marshall. "We let them get into what they wanted to play." 

The Huskies (0-1-1) return to action on Sunday, September 26 as they take to the road against the Grande Prairie Regional College Wolves.