Bobcats looking to level field against Les Rouges

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 28/10/2017 (3054 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Brandon University Bobcats men’s soccer team dropped both regular-season matchups against the Saint-Boniface Les Rouges, 4-3 on Sept. 16 at HLC Field and 3-2 last Sunday in Winnipeg.

In fact, the Bobcats have lost seven of eight all-time meetings between the two Manitoba Colleges Athletic Conference foes with the exception being a 2-2 draw on Oct. 3, 2015.

So the BU players feel like there’s no time better to pick up their first-ever victory over USB than today in the conference semifinals in Winnipeg.

A year after finishing on the outside looking in at the playoff picture, Brandon finished with a 4-4-2 record this year that placed them third. Les Rouges finished as the second seed after posting an 8-1-1 mark.

Despite a pair of losses to USB this fall, BU head coach Jesse Roziere feels his squad matches up well with the three-time defending champions.

“I think over the two games … they were both very attacking games and I think we are two teams that can score goals,” he said. “You don’t need to give them opportunities to score. You have to make them work for their chances and I’m sure they are going to be asking the same of their team to have us work for ours and not give us anything free.

“It’s critical not to give a team with that skill level extra opportunities to score because they will create extra chances on their own.”

Les Rouges features two of the top four goal-scorers as Yahia Chihab and Imani Bujiriri each found the back of the net eight times, finishing tied for second in the league. Chihab was named the MCAC men’s MVP on Thursday, while Bujiriri was named to the all-conference team.

Although USB has firepower, so too do the Bobcats, who boast all-star Diego Rodriguez (four goals) and Christian Eluemelen (five goals). Brandon also features all-conference goalkeeper Daniel Harrison.

“He’s a great goalie and even better leader for our team,” said midfielder Osian Edwards. “Having him make big saves for us and be a big vocal point in the back helps a lot with our defence and up the field progressively.”

Neither Roziere or Edwards expect the semifinal — with a berth in Sunday’s final on the line against either the Providence University College Pilots or Canadian Mennonite University Blazers — to be super high-scoring, with more of a focus on defence.

But Edwards isn’t going to say no to lots of Bobcat tallies.

“We both have the potential to score a lot of goals but with our goalie and our defence I think we also have the potential to stop them,” Edwards added. “From my standpoint I’d like to see a lot of goals for us.”

Brandon lost 4-3 to CMU two years ago in its only other semifinal appearance, and Edwards would love nothing more than to reach a final for the first time. Capturing the championship would be even grander.

“It’s one thing to make it there but if we make it there it’s not job done,” he added. “If we make it there that’s the cake but winning it is the cherry on the cake.”

The BU women’s squad knows a thing or two about the proverbial cake as well as the cherry. Brandon beat the Red River College Rebels 3-1 in last year’s MCAC final, after falling 2-1 to the Rebels in 2015.

The Bobcats are the defending champs but enter the semifinals having failed to score in three straight games to close out a 5-4-1 campaign. They finished just one point ahead of RRC for the fourth and final playoff berth and will face PUC (6-3-1) today.

CMU and USB will square off in the other semi, with the winners facing each other in Sunday’s final.

Jaycee Castle, who finished second in MCAC scoring with 10 goals and was named to the all-conference team along with Bobcat defender Jade Barrault, will look to get BU out of its scoring slump and knows the other teams are gunning for Brandon.

“We still have a target on our back because of winning the championship last year,” Castle said. “There might be a little bit of underestimating on their part but we’re definitely going to prove them wrong.”

The two teams split the season series with the Bobcats taking a 2-0 win on Sept. 9 and PUC earning a 4-3 victory on Oct. 1, but Castle knows she and her teammates have to keep an eye on fellow all-conference player Julika Phommarath, who has netted nine goals this fall.

“They have one player that we definitely try to keep a mark on so she’s definitely our target,” Castle said. “I know we can beat them. I think they just got a few lucky shots in the last game that we played against them and we kind of underestimated that they’d come out as hard as they did.”

» nliewicki@brandonsun.com

» Twitter: @liewicks