The Carleton Ravens men’s soccer team had two tough road matches Sept. 29 and 30, drawing the Ryerson Rams 1-1 in dramatic fashion and then losing a close one to the University of Toronto Varsity Blues 2-1.
In the match against Ryerson, it wasn’t until the 86th minute when Carleton defender Christophe Laberge-Perrault hauled down a Ryerson striker in the Ravens’ box, that a goal was scored. Laberge-Perrault was given a yellow card and the Rams were awarded a penalty kick.
Milos Scepanovic scored on the penalty kick for the Rams and they were ahead 1-0 with very little time remaining in the match. As if that wasn’t exciting enough, the Ravens managed to tie the game in the 90th minute with a goal from Mintcho Mintchev. The game ended in a 1-1 draw.
The next day, the Ravens played another strong team in the University of Toronto Varsity Blues. Again, the first goal only came towards the end of the game, in the 83rd minute, for the Varsity Blues. Shortly after that goal, Andrew Latty thought he had scored for the Ravens but the flag was then raised for offside.
“That’s just how the game goes,” Latty said. “The ref only raised the flag five to six seconds after the ball was already in the net. It doesn’t always go your way.”
Assistant coach Kwesi Loney said that the linesman raised the flag quite late as the ball was already in the net when the offside was called and it should be called well before then.
The Ravens did not let that faze them, however, as in the dying minutes of the game, Andrew Latty scored his OUA league-leading 12th goal on the season in the 88th minute to tie the game 1-1.
“It was a free kick and I got my head on the ball just before the goalkeeper put his hand on it and it went past him and in the net,” Latty said.
In the third minute of extra-time, the Ravens gave up a corner kick and the Varsity Blues capitalized with the winning goal as they defeated the Ravens 2-1.
“It was a mental lapse by the team,” Loney said. “They didn’t play to the final whistle, and it cost us.”
“It’s been a long week, we’ve played three games in the past seven days on this road trip and we just need to focus and work hard in training and get back to what we’ve been doing before.”
With just one point in two games, the Ravens have now dropped back into a tie with Queen’s for top spot in the OUA East with just four games remaining in the regular season.
The Ravens get the week off to train and refocus before they continue on their road trip Oct. 6-7 against the Nipissing Lakers and Laurentian Voyageurs.
