The St. Albert Impact 1 men kept their season going with a huge win Wednesday, handing the division leaders their first loss of the season.
The Impact scored a 3-2 decision against the Ital-Canadians (12-1-1) at the ESA Complex to finish the regular season undefeated in seven games. By posting a 9-2-3 record the Impact placed second in division 1B for a spot in the tier II provincial playdowns.
“They played well. Ital is a really, really tough team,” said Impact coach Dave MacEachran. “They’ve been together for a long time and it’s hard to play a team like that because we like to use our speed and we like to use our ball. They have very pinpoint passing and that is tough on us, because we play a little scrambly at times but they played well.”
Edmonton is hosting provincials during the Labour Day weekend and two teams will represent the Edmonton District Soccer Association. Ital, first place in division 1B, along with AS Roma (9-3-2), who finished first in division 1A, will play for one berth. The second spot will be determined by a game between the two St. Albert Impact teams. The Impact 2 men have second place locked up in division 1A at 7-1-5 with one game remaining. The playdown tilt goes Wednesday at 6:30 p.m. at Edmonton’s Confederation Park. The winner will meet the loser of the game between Ital and Roma to determine the second provincial qualifier.
The last time the Impact teams met was in the preseason, when they fought to a 1-1 tie.
“It will be interesting,” said Impact 1 player Brent Anderson. “They are a good squad. They have good players. They have a couple ex-players that used to play for us, as well, so it will be good to play against those guys and give them a little run for their money and hopefully they will give us a good game too.”
The game won’t be lacking in intensity just because the players all know each other so well.
“It is kind of like when we were back in premier and the Rangers were our cross-city rivals,” Anderson said. “I’m sure there will be intensity. They will be gunning for us. We will be gunning for them too, not to injure or anything like that, but to go out there and play a hard game. We both want to go to provincials.”
The Impact could have wrapped up second place in division 1B with a win over third-place SS Napoli (9-3-2) on Sunday but settled for a 4-4 tie.
Going into the game against Ital, the Impact knew they had to come out strong, which is what they did, scoring the opening two goals. Just four minutes into the game, a shot from Anderson was deflected out for a corner kick. After it was played back in, it took a deflection right to Brendan Hutchinson in the box, who kicked it in. Three minutes later, Shaun Kelly caught the Ital keeper off guard with a shot from around 30 yards out, going across the net and into the far corner. It was Kelly’s 13th goal in 14 games, moving him into a tie for second in the division scoring race.
Ital made things interesting with a pair of goals to tie things up, one on each side of the halftime break with both coming from Jason Miniaci.
However, in the 74th minute the Impact benefited from Kelly’s second goal of the game. After a nice lead pass, Kelly charged the net, cut back around a defender and hammered the ball into the net.
Earlier in the game, Kelly picked up his second yellow card of the season for a hard tackle. He will have to be careful on Wednesday. If he receives a third caution, it will mean a one-game suspension.
For many of the Impact players, their club season is starting to get close to running straight into the Alberta Colleges Athletics Conference (ACAC) season. Anderson will be playing for the Mount Royal University Cougars and he will attend try-outs in Calgary on Tuesday, before driving back north for the Impact’s game on Wednesday. If the Impact play in provincials on Labour Day, he and many of his teammates will have just five days until the ACAC regular season opener.
Meanwhile, Kelly will be playing for the NAIT Ooks, who host nationals in November.
