Skip to content

TWU soccer: Peters the hero as Spartans win late

97961langleyBraydenGantbikekickvsUVIC5x7webversion
Trinity Western Spartans Brayden Gant executes a bicycle kick in his team’s match against the Victoria Vikes on Saturday night at Rogers Field. The Spartans won 2-1 after losing their season opener 1-0 the previous night to the Fraser Valley Cascades.

Garrett Peters made the most of his opportunity.

Peters played a grand total of two minutes in Saturday night’s men’s soccer match for the Trinity Western Spartans against the visiting Victoria Vikes at Rogers Field.

But in that short time, the striker notched the game-winning goal in a 2-1 victory.

Peters headed home a free kick from Spencer Schmidt in the game’s 90th minute.

Schmidt had opened the scoring in the 71st minute before Victoria’s Andrew Ravenhill struck for the equalizer seven minutes later.

The victory evened Trinity Western’s Canada West record to 1-1-0 as they had lost their opener, 1-0 to the Fraser Valley Cascades the night before.

“The good thing about Canada West is you don’t get a lot of time to think about what happened the night before,” said Spartans coach Pat Rohla. “We came out and just decided that we were going after it and we did.

“We changed a couple of things structurally and I think everyone was committed to the cause and played hard for each other.”

In the 71st minute, Daniel Lowen, who had just entered the game a few minutes earlier, gave the ball to Schmidt in the box and the striker turned on a dime and whipped in a blasting shot past Victoria keeper Elliot Mitrou.

Schmidt nearly doubled the lead three minutes later but his free kick rocketed off the crossbar.

Victoria pulled even when Gavin Barrett raced down the side and sent a low drive which eluded both Spartan defenders and diving goalkeeper Andrew Fink. Ravenhill took the ball and deposited it into the open goal.

In the match against Fraser Valley, the Cascades’ Craig Robinson struck for the only goal in the 17th minute.

The contest was a chippy affair with nine yellow cards handed out.

“The game lacked the passion and lacked the passion we needed to display to have success,” Rohla said.

“I think we were all waiting on someone else to do it instead of going after it. It was too little too late. We created opportunities at the end but nobody really wanted to step and finish it. Collectively it was not good. Individually it was not good. We had a good preseason but this league play and you have to be able to go up another notch to have success.”

The Spartans host UBC at Rogers Field on Sept. 16 with a 7 p.m. kickoff.