The right recipe was found in the second half to lift the Tigers to a 2-0 win over the University of New Brunswick Varsity Reds in Dalhousie’s first game of the season.
That is how Tiger’s Head Coach Pat Nearing described it.
“I think we sort of took 45 minutes to get going,” said Nearing. “Kallen (Heenan) gives us a great work ethic up front and we subbed Tareq (Armoush) back on who had the second goal. It is like making a recipe and you got to get the right ingredients.”
The game did not start out well for the Tigers. Early in the game, Tiger’s second year midfielder, Hassan Alnuwaysir, took a knee to his back and had to leave the game. Because of the loss to Alnuwaysir, the Tigers were out of sync in the first half.
“We had to make an adjustment and I don’t think we got our momentum back after he came off the field until halftime,” said Nearing.
The good news is Alnuwaysir returned in the next day in Dal’s game against Acadia.
The Varsity Reds had the best opportunity to score in the half. Mario Maldonado fired a corner kick that Dal keeper TJ Leopold dove out to grab. Leopold missed and was caught out of position. Luckily, two Tigers defenders were able to block two shots to prevent the ball from going into the open net.
In the second half, the team put in fourth-year-striker, Kallen Heenan, and he immediately brought offensive energy to the game. He quickly created a scoring chance that was denied by a blocked shot. A few minutes later he dove head first to head a rebound into the net to give the Tigers a 1-0 lead.
The Tigers struck again 27 minutes later. Heenan passed the ball to Armoush. Armoush took two strides into the box and fired the ball past UNB keeper, Kristain D’Amore, to make the game 2-0.
With 11:41 left in the match, it looked like the V-Reds scored off a redirected corner kick. However, the referee turned it back because it looked like Leopold was interfered with.
That is as close as the V-Reds would come to scoring and the Tigers won 2-0.
Even though the Tigers were outshot 11-3 in the game, they were not too worried about it because the majority of shots they gave up were not dangerous. The Tigers were more efficient scoring on 2/3 shots.
Team Captain, Jonathan Doucette, summed it up the best, “We’re a quality over quantity team and I think you saw that today.”
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