It took longer than expected, but the Yorkton United U14 soccer team finally picked up their first win in Saskatchewan Premier Soccer League play with a 6-4 victory over Saskatoon's Aurora Diablo at Parkland Mall Field on Saturday.
The U14's followed their first win on Saturday with a hard fought 4-4 draw against Lakewood Atletico on Sunday to give themselves two strong results in the second half of the season.
Saturday success
United opened the scoring very early on in the game, however Aurora Diablo scored the next three goals to take a 3-1 lead and it seemed as if the wheels were about to fall off of the Yorkton bus.
But that was not to be as the boys from Yorkton scored the next four goals to take a 5-3 lead before Aurora Diablo made it 5-4 late in the second half.
A sixth goal clinched the game for Yorkton, giving the Parkland Valley based club its first victory at Saskatchewan's highest level despite a mid-game scare. "The boys lost their form a little bit after letting in three quick goals," suggested United U14 head coach Mike Jakubiec. "We lost our tactics a little bit but we got into half time, gathered ourselves and came out strong and won."
Jakubiec felt that the reason his club was able to beat Aurora Diablo, a team that had beaten Yorkton 3-1 earlier in the season, was largely due to their renewed effort at training. "We spent three or four days preparing for this weekend out on the training pitch working on attacking this last week and everyone worked hard," said Jakubiec, mentioning that his team is "not a possession based team by any means" and that they are more "a team that looks to attack swiftly" and that they tend to try and generate offence by rushing the ball up the field or scoring via corners, as evidenced in Saturday's game.
So close on Sunday
Yorkton United U14 came so close to winning their second straight game on Sunday, however they had to settle for the tie as they battled Lakewood Atletico to a 4-4 draw.
One positive for Yorkton, however, was how balanced their offence was. Four different players scored for United, with Dami Ogunbiyi, Matthew Mandziuk, Jaxon McLeod and Nicholas Fetsch all finding the net.
Despite knowing his team took four of six points on the weekend, their first points in league play, United bench boss Mike Jakubiec believed that his club should have beaten Lakewood and, had they not been exhausted from a hectic weekend, they would have, saying, "4-4 is an okay result. I felt like we should have won the game but a draw is, at the end of the day, probably a good result for us.
"These are two games that we had marked for wins at the beginning of the season as these are junior teams that we are matching up against. We lost to them in Saskatoon but we easily outplayed them so I feel like this was a little bit of retribution for us. It felt good."
Next action
The next action for Yorkton United U14 (1-6-1) will be Saturday, July 5 when they visit Unidad Juniors (3-4-0) for a 1:00pm game at the University of Regina.
The next home match for United will be the following day, Sunday, July 6 when they host top of the table Unidad Seniors (7-0-0) for a 2:00pm match at Parkland Mall Field.
