After his Sutherland senior boys soccer team knocked off the Burnaby Central Wildcats 2-1 in an overtime thriller on Saturday afternoon in the provincial AAA final, it’s finally impossible for head coach Bill Mahon to downplay just how awesome his Sabres are this year.
Sutherland’s skill was on display back in September when the Sabres scored back-to-back wins over traditional powerhouse teams Handsworth and Argyle to take an early lead in the tough North Shore league. But at the time Mahon was in no hurry to call his team the best on the North Shore.
“I’m definitely not going to say that,” he told the North Shore News at the time. “That would be the kiss of death. We’ll just see how each game plays out.”
As the games played out, however, the Sabres kept on winning, eventually claiming the North Shore AAA regular season title and earning a trip to provincials with a convincing 3-1 victory over Burnaby Central in the zone playdowns. Even then, however, Mahon slow-played his hand, saying that with only three Grade 12s on his 15-man roster the Sabres were likely too young to do any real damage at the big show.
“Whatever we do this year hopefully we’ll learn from it and I think we have a good shot at playing well next year,” he said at the time. “I’m just hoping they play to potential and no one gets hurt and we’ll see how we do.”
Well, we saw how they did, and it was awesome. What do you have to say now, coach?
“I never try to give too much away,” he said with a laugh as his Sabres celebrated their thrilling 2-1 win that came in the dying seconds of overtime Saturday at Burnaby Lakes Sports Complex West. “I knew we had a good team — but you never know.”
The truth is finally starting to come out. In fact, it seems that Mahon has known all along that he was carrying a winning hand but he didn’t want to show all his cards until he was at the final table. The evidence lies in a gamble the team took before the season even started when the Sabres elected to ditch the smaller-school AA league — that’s the level their school’s population qualified them for — and instead opted to play with the big boys at AAA. That’s the ultimate confidence move for a small-school coach and Mahon had no hesitations.
It’s true, as Mahon insists, that no one can predict all of the bounces and breaks that go into winning a championship, but it’s obvious now that the coach had extreme confidence in his boys despite their lack of experience.
“l love their desire,” he said. That passion was on full display in Saturday’s intense final, a rematch of that zone playoff game from three weeks ago. Sutherland’s speedy midfielder Travis Ladhar opened the scoring 30 minutes into the first half on a blistering run down the right side that he finished off with a low shot tucked inside the left post.
The celebration, however, was very short lived as less than one minute later Burnaby’s Parker Ellis — who would win the tournament’s Golden Boot award and be named MVP in a losing effort — tied it up with a beautiful left-footed blast into the top corner.
“He’s one of the best players I’ve seen at this calibre of high school soccer,” said Mahon. “We tried to double him up every time we could. . . . We talked about him at the start of the game as their danger guy and he still got a great goal.”
From that point on the teams traded chances with Sutherland carrying a slight edge in play. It was Burnaby, however, that nearly won it with the last kick of the second half. With the referee ready to blow his whistle and send the game into overtime, the ball popped out to Ellis alone in the middle of the Sutherland box. His slightly scuffed shot, however, was scooped up by Sutherland’s star keeper Michael Girard, later named the tournament’s top goalie. It was a heart-in-throat moment for the Sabres.
“Whenever Parker got the ball there was just fear through my mind,” Sutherland’s Cole Keffer said after the game.
Burnaby created another golden chance midway through the second 7.5-minute overtime period but a free header from an unmarked player sailed over the bar.
Three minutes later the Sabres won a free kick near the half way line that was drifted into the box by Spencer Pow. The ball took a touch off a head and bounced towards the Burnaby keeper but was intercepted by Sutherland Grade 11 striker Dzenan Bezdrob, who chested it down and took a deft little touch to his right, all of a sudden finding himself staring at a wide open goal. The finish was a mere formality as Bezdrob rolled it into the back of the net, accelerating only when the ball crossed the line so that he could go nuts right in front of a large contingent of Sutherland supporters on the sideline.
“It was perfect,” Bezdrob said of his hero moment. “I saw the ball get flicked on by my buddy Adam (Swanson), the ball dropped to me. The goalie was about to grab it, I chested it and all I heard was a roar. I just placed it and ran over to our fans.”
A few seconds later the final whistle blew and everyone knew how good these Sabres really are. The coach couldn’t gloat, though, as he was still recovering from an incredibly tight final game.
“Oh God, I’m shattered,” said Mahon. “It’s very stressful being on the bench.”
The game was so close to a shootout that the Sabres had already made tactical substitutions for the kicks. Mahon was reaching for his lineup card to pick his best penalty takers when the decisive goal went in.
“When I saw Dzenan go into open space I couldn’t believe it,” said Keffer, the team’s captain and a virtual coach on the field. “With a minute left I was already thinking about the PKs. It was just amazing.”
Keffer was one of the team’s three Grade 12s — Kieran Newberry and standout forward Kristian Yi Hietenen were the others — and the captain was a force all over the field from his defensive midfield position. An elite rugby player, Keffer took that tough mentality with him onto the
soccer pitch.
“Cole’s a stud,” said Mahon. “He’s our leader. He’ll run all day for you, compete hard.”
Keffer, however, didn’t know exactly what to expect as a Grade 12 leader on a team packed with Grade 11s.
“I knew we had a bunch of awesome Grade 11s and the two other Grade 12s with me were some of my really good friends and great soccer players,” he said. “I knew we’d do well — I never thought we’d win provincials. I thought we’ll make it to provincials. These guys are some of my best buddies from both grades and it was just an awesome experience. . . . This was the soccer game that meant the most to me out of any soccer game I’ve ever played. There are no words to describe it.”
The win gave the Sabres their first provincial title since the school won a pair in 1984 and 1986. Since then it’s been fairly lean for Sutherland, their last North Shore title coming back in 1997 at the AA level. But with up to a dozen Grade 11 players set to return for their senior year next season, the young Sabres are thinking about a repeat.
“Yeah, we are,” confirmed Bezdrob. “We’re looking forward to it already.”
Sounds like coach Mahon will really need to work on his poker face if he wants to try slow playing this group again.
