Late penalty kick costs Horns against Grant MacEwan

By Lethbridge Herald on September 2, 2022.

Herald File photo Seward University of Lethbridge Pronghorn Alasdair Coyle tries to slide the ball past a sliding Grant MacEwan defender in an early September game at Community Stadium. The Horns finally got their first victory in five years last weekend.

By Justin Seward

Lethbridge Herald

It was thanks to an 81st minute successful penalty kick by Stefan Gajic that propelled the Grant MacEwan University Griffins men’s soccer team to a 3-2 win over the University of Lethbridge Pronghorns on Friday night at Community Stadium.

The Pronghorns scored their first goal of the season off the foot of Danilo Morales just 2:46 into the contest before Rakan Yassin tied the game at 27:35 mark of the first half.

GMU gained the lead a short time later as  Egzon Jeteshi  kicked the ball home at the 31:59 mark.

It was under 10 minutes later that Morales scored his second of the game to tie the game at 2 heading into the half.

That is where the score would stay until Gajic’s game winner.

“Just as the game went on, I think game management dropped a little bit,” said Davin Haigh, Pronghorns head coach.

“But, yeah, I think the positives we have to look at. We created chances and still again I think we gave them a few too many chances. So it’s just finding that balance of how to control the game.”

Haigh saw some improvements over a week ago in a shutout loss to University of Saskatchewan.

“We were definitely not as complacent on the ball today,” he said.

“I think we were finding our purpose and finding those gaps in behind to actually get forward, which is how our goals were created. So, yeah, definitely improvements for sure.”

GMU outshot U of L 18-11.

The Pronghorns drop to 0-2 on the season and will look for their first win when they play host to the University of Alberta on Sunday at 2 p.m.

The women’s team also dropped to 0-2 on Wednesday after losing the Mount Royal University Cougars 4-2 in Calgary.

Mercedes Bourgeois scored at the 52nd minute and Kayleigh Harris scored at 74th minute for U of L.

The women will be back in action next weekend in B.C. at Trinity Western on Friday at 7 p.m. and next Sunday against UFV at noon.

 Rugby

In other university sports action, the Pronghorns Women’s Rugby 15’s lost to the University of Calgary Dinos 36-17 on Friday night in their season opener.

Comments are closed.