Kings drop home game to SAIT

Following the Queens at the RDC Field, the Red Deer College Kings Soccer team faced the SAIT Trojans, who sat in second place in the ACAC Men's Soccer South Division. The Kings had some good opportunities that rang off the crossbar, but couldn't beat the Trojans goalkeeper. The game ended in a 3-0 SAIT win.

The Trojans came out quickly and found the back of the net in the 14th minute on a goal by William Akio. Darel Ejikeme put SAIT up 2-0 in the 16th minute. As the half went on the Kings created several good scoring opportunities. One hard strike rang off the crossbar but bounced out.

In the second half Bruno Damian of the Kings nearly scored off of a free kick. Damian, an Electrical Engineering Technology student, bent his shot around the defendors and the Trojans goalkeeper stopped enough of the ball to send it off the crossbar and out. In the 87th minute SAIT went up 3-0 on a goal by Daniel Schager and time expired with no more scoring.

The Kings Head Coach Wade Groenewegen recognized a lack of execution today, despite chances.

"Today was an execution day," said Groenewegen. "If a couple of passes are a little tighter at the right time and if a couple of balls were brought down a little bit better at the right time, we create or finish some really quality opportunities that we didn't today."

Groenewegen didn't like the start for the Kings but was pleased with some push back.

"I didn't like our effort in the first few minutes. After that, and especially the last few minutes in the first half we really owned and took over the game," said Groenewegen. "The second half was back and forth. It could have went either way. Today was a day about execution. If touches go better at certain times, we have a much different result but they didn't."

Raymond Fox, from North Battleford, Saskatchewan, was named the Kings player-of-the-game. 

The persistence of the goalkeeper was appreciated.

"Ray was really strong in net. He faced one-on-none chances more than he should have," said Groenewegen. "He didn't quit on anything. I can't blame him for any of the goals against. He took a lot of the good opportunities away from SAIT."

The Kings Head Coach was upbeat about the play of Ben Anderson as well.

"An honourable mentionable goes to Ben at the back too," said Groenewegen. "He made a lot of tackles. SAIT likes to go forward, and is ready to go forward so you have to be ready to defend all game."

The RDC Kings play their final regular season game at 2:00 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 23 at the RDC Field against the Olds College Broncos.