The Carleton Ravens men’s soccer team kicked off the 2016 season by accomplishing a feat they hadn’t achieved since 2012: opening the season with back-to-back wins.
The Ravens opened their season on the road on Aug. 26 with a 3-0 victory over host Trent Excalibur in Peterborough, then topped the University of Ontario Institute of Technology Ridgebacks by a score of 2-1 on Aug. 28 at MNP Park.
“It wasn’t pretty—but we always said that from the very beginning, preseason is pretty short, so we just wanted to get through, get the six points,” said Kwesi Loney, the men’s soccer head coach.
“[Now] we can focus and work on the next two weeks of training,” he said.
Ariel Lugoma notched the first goal of the season for the visiting Ravens when he found the back of net only 15 minutes into the contest.
Dante Cobisa and Mekonen Lovemore-White added two more goals for the Ravens in the second half, while David Monk earned the shutout in goal.
In the home opener, Andrew Bryan lead the way offensively for the Ravens, scoring two goals in the first half of the game.
“[Bryan] can score goals obviously, any time you have a a threat like that up front, you always know your going to be into a game,” Loney said.
“That feeds the other guys as well and they can get forward to create goals which we did—we just didn’t finish,” he said.
The Ravens surrendered a goal early in the second half, but they were able to contain the Ridgebacks offence and hold on for the victory.
Just two games into his career as head coach of the team, Loney has found a way to establish himself, while maintaining the values practiced by former head coach Sandy Mackie during his 24 years with the team.
“The pillars of Carleton soccer will never change—it’s always about hard work, responsibility, accountability and work ethic,” Loney said.
The Ravens now have a lengthy break before their next game, which they’ll use to continue to train and prepare.
“Hats off to the guys, [they] worked really hard the last couple weeks of preseason, first two games were great,” Loney said.
“Now we got to get back to the drawing board, we got two big games in another two weeks.”
