The Cavaliers continued their work on the road after Friday night’s win away at Vanier College. This time they made the journey north to Quebec City where their arch rivals from CEGEP Garneau were waiting for them.
The Cavaliers haven’t won at FX Garneau, let alone picked up any points, in the last few trips there. With first place on the line the Cavaliers rose to the occasion and took the game to the host team.
While creating many scoring chances and making things difficult for their opposition, the Cavaliers were unable to capitalize. The game was played at a high physical tempo that saw some hard challenges on both sides.
As the first half wound down under some unseasonably warm temperatures, the Cavaliers managed to go a goal up. During first half injury time the Cavaliers had a corner kick that was cleared away to the half, only to be knocked back diagonally deep across the 18 yard box by defender Antoine Laliberte. The ball sailed over a crowd of players to rookie Charles-Carrier Cote, his first touch settled the ball and he fired a thunderous strike past the goalkeeper from an impossible angle that stunned everyone on the field.
The Cavaliers started the 2nd half creating one opportunity after another and strung together passes that had the Garneau players on their heels. Garneau found their “break”, however, as a through ball was played between two defenders. Ilyes Ait Slimane made a great slide tackle to put the ball out for a corner kick but the referee made saw it as a penalty and awarded Garneau with a penalty kick. The hosts converted the penalty in the 60th minute of play.
Champlain did not let up and continued working hard to earn the full 3 points available on the road. As time winded down the Cavaliers inserted some fresh legs and were rewarded in the 85th minute when Alexandre Garceau gained possession of the ball out wide on the left flank. His relentless work ethic all game attracted attention from many defenders. As Garceau settled the ball and looked up he saw a wide open Carrier-Cote who made a run into the central part of the field. Garceau wasted no time and released a quick lateral pass to Carrier-Cote who took a first touch forward into the 18 yard box, faked a shot and side-stepped an out-rushing goalkeeper freeing himself away from the opposition and calmly tucking the ball away into a bare net for the 2-1 lead.
As time wound down the referee added 5min of injury time due to some hard knocks taken by some players during the second half. The Cavaliers put in some fresh legs for those final crucial minutes and they helped close out the game for the much needed win that helped propel them 5 points clear of 2nd place FX Garneau.
The player of the game was rookie Charles Carrier-Cote who scored both goals for the Cavaliers. The “Brovsky” Award for hard-working player of the game was Matthew Francois who toughed out the last 30min of the game after taking a hard challenge from an opponent.
