Olds College Broncos men's soccer team lost 1-0 to the SAIT Trojans Sunday, Oct. 20 at Richardson Pioneer Field. With a win and a Red Deer College loss or tie, the Broncos would have jumped RDC in the standing, unfortunately neither of those event happened on Sunday. The game was the Graduating student-athlete appreciation game and Ryan Murphy. Jaxson Simon, Ryan Wolff, Fabian Gromenida, Luiz Guimaraes, Brendan Klassen, Jacob McLarney, and Daniel Pirie were honoured after the game.
Both teams had back and forth chances to start the game, but the best chance was at the 12 minute when SAIT had a great shot but Olds goalie Ryan Murphy made a great diving save. Not to be outdone SAIT's Marko Ilich made a high diving save on Oli Abera moments later.
At the 19th minute Abera went in on goal and deked out the SAIT defender but shot the ball over the SAIT goal.
Shots at halftime were 15-11 for Olds with shots on goal 8-7 for Olds as well, and SAIT held the edge in corner kicks 3-2.
At the 67th minute Fabian Gromenida had a great chance for Olds when he intercepted a pass just inside the SAIT half and juggled the ball and volleyed the ball mid juggle towards the SAIT net but it went just over the cross bar. At the 72 and 74 minute marks Gromenida had two great free kicks, the first Ilich was able to deflect high above the goal and the second he hit just wide and high.
SAIT opened the scoring at the 85 minute mark when Armando Garcia fed the ball to Joseph Lambele at the top of the box who powered then ball past Murphy to make the score 1-0 for SAIT.
The Broncos kept pushing hard, pressuring SAIT in every avenue of the game, but were unable to solve Ilich and the game ended 1-0 for SAIT.
Player of the game for SAIT was Eduardo Filho and the Pit Barbecue Player of the Game for the Broncos was Broncos captain Brendan Klassen.
Shots were 24-21 for the Broncos with Olds goalie Ryan Murphy making eight saves and SAIT's Ilich made nine. SAIT had 11 corner kicks to Olds five.
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