By Dylan Matthias, Sports Editor
There’s a new rivalry in town.
The St. FX X-Men and Dalhousie Tigers men’s soccer teams played an ugly, foul affair last Saturday, ending in a 0–0 draw.
While the quality of play on offer was high and the action engaging for a scoreless game, the antics in the second half, especially from St. FX were juvenile and disgraceful. But for the composure and leniency of referee Karol Gorski, St. FX could have finished with only seven or eight players.
“I’m a little disappointed … that a team would boil over like that and show such lack of discipline and lack of respect for the referee,” said Tigers coach Pat Nearing. “That’s just the culture of the team. They wanted every call, and every time a call didn’t go their way, they were effing and blinding at the referee. In fact, I thought the referee was a little bit patient with them.”
The conduct of former Toronto FC academy and reserve player Steven Lumley was especially distasteful.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” he screamed at the referee after a routine call not twenty feet from where a group of children sat on the sideline. According to Nearing, Lumley also cursed Gorski several times after the game.
“It shows a lack of class,” said Nearing. “It’s an emotional sport, people are passionate about it. I thought we controlled ourselves fairly well. A couple of times we threw ourselves into some big tackles, but overall I was happy with the way deployed ourselves on the field.”
Dalhousie tended towards defence right from the opening whistle in an attempt to contain AUS leading scorer Michael Marousek and the pace of wingers Jamar Dixon and A.J. Gray. It was a standard safety-first game from Dal, and but for the odd little wobble in the first half, they played it well.
Dal keeper Ben Ur was tested in the 12th minute, when Dixon got around Jordan Mannix on a 70-yard run from his own half. The Dal keeper’s sliding save, however, kept the game scoreless.
Dal’s defensive structure was sound until half-time, when veteran defensive midfielder Chris Haughn was forced out of the game with a knock he picked up in the 19th minute.
St. FX did have a good opportunity in the 41st minute when Kareem Henry was set free in acres of space on the right. Dal were saved by Henry’s lack of composure: the talented sophomore tried several too many step-overs in open space, giving Dal time to recover and making the eventual shot a weak on.
Evan MacEachern, starting in goal for St. FX after usual starter Andrew MacDonald got sick, closed out the first half with a terrific leaping save on a header from Julian Perrotta.
In the second half, things got ugly.
St. FX began to get frustrated with Dal’s work ethic. The X-Men are ranked top in the country, but the ranking is misleading because they haven’t played anyone outside the decidedly mixed AUS conference. Many of their points have come against Mt. Allison, Acadia, and Memorial. When faced with Dalhousie, Saint Mary’s and Cape Breton, they’ve been less impressive.
In the 67th minute, frustration showed for Bryan Evans, who had a lot of difficulty dealing with Haughn’s replacement, Wes Hawley. After missing him with a lunging desperation tackle, the St. FX fullback spun around and levelled Hawley with his arm. The dissent from St. FX began to escalate after every call against them.
In the 72nd minute, Nathan Rogers was brought down behind the play and had to be helped off. Zach Fisher replaced him, but again Dalhousie’s tough defence was weakened and St. FX began to pile on the pressure, hoping to avoid their first dropped points of the season.
“We weren’t desperate at all,” said Nearing. “We knew we were going to be able to hold defensively if we didn’t make any major mistakes. The question for us always is ‘Can we get goals against the top teams?’”
The last ten minutes seemed to take forever as Gorski tightened his calls to try and stem the flow of dirty tackles, nasty dissent and retaliation in the game. St. FX, however, were desperately trying to score and came completely undone when Dal prevented it.
Josh Weinberger blazed a shot over the bar in the 84th minute. In the 86th minute, Hutchison tested MacEachern only to be called back for offside. Hutchison came close again two minutes later on a header which the X-Men scrambled clear, breaking upfield until Lumley fouled Mannix and had his tirade. Marousek had half a chance in the dying seconds, turning and shooting off one of his own players and wide.
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