The St. Albert Impact 2 men are one win away from going to the tier II provincial soccer championship, thanks in part to Mark McQuaid.
The talented striker joined Impact 2 from the St. Albert Impact Rangers for Wednesday’s playdown semifinal to give them an extra boost and he proved beneficial, creating several scoring opportunities in helping the team to the 1-0 victory over the rival St. Albert Impact 1 men at Riel Park on Wednesday.
The only goal of the game came from striker Scott DeJong, who was second on his Impact 2 team in regular season scoring with five in 13 matches.
“It’s like a toolbox, right?” said Impact 2 coach Dave Bilodeau. “If you’ve got all the tools in your box to work with, holy man, you can do some good stuff. If you don’t have the right tools sometimes, you can still do good stuff, but it just gives you that extra edge if you’ve got the right tool, right? [McQuaid] created some space for the guys, no question.”
Unfortunately for McQuaid and his Impact 2 teammates, he won’t be able to play in the next game, or when the Rangers are back in action.
During the first half, he went to the ground after making contact with a defender, and the referee warned him at the time not to try to buy another foul call because he felt McQuaid was exaggerating. In the 91st minute, with his team holding a 1-0 lead and going for an insurance goal, McQuaid streaked up the field to just in front of the 18-yard box and appeared to be pulled down by an Impact 1 defender. However, that’s not how the referee saw it and he gave McQuaid a yellow card because he deemed that he was again witnessing some acting.
Following the game, after the Impact 2 side held on for the narrow victory, McQuaid went to midfield to look for an explanation and was given a second yellow and a red card after he persisted in his questioning.
“He warned me in the game not to try to win any free kicks, but I was clearly taken down,” McQuaid said. “It was very, very blatantly obvious, and he said that it was a foul, but he wouldn’t give me a free kick because he had warned me already and that’s why he booked me. Forgive me, but I couldn’t accept that as a decent reason for having a yellow card.”
Because of the red card, McQuaid will, in effect, face a two-game suspension because he joined Impact 2, which is a sort of reserve squad for the Rangers. McQuaid will be forced to sit out one game for the Rangers before he can serve his suspension with Impact 2. In 13 games with the Rangers, McQuaid scored a team-high nine goals.
The next game for Impact 2 in the provincial playdowns is Sunday against the Ital-Canadians. Kickoff is 6 p.m. at the ESA Complex. The winner earns a berth at tier II provincials, Sept. 10 to 12 in Edmonton.
In the Edmonton District Soccer Association, Ital (12-1-1) finished first in division 1B and lost the playdown crossover with AS Roma (9-2-3), the top division 1A team, 2-1 Wednesday. Impact 2 (7-1-5) placed second in division 1A and Impact 1 (9-2-3) was No. 2 in division 1B.
In the battle of St. Albert, Impact 1 held the early edge in play, but couldn’t pot any goals. With a division-leading 58 goals, they couldn’t come up big when it mattered most.
“We lost a lot of balls in the air, which we normally don’t do,” said Impact 1 coach Dave MacEachran. “We moved the ball quite effectively at times but we couldn’t put the ball in the net and that’s how you win the game.”
MacEachran’s squad was missing team scoring leader Shaun Kelly (suspended for receiving too many yellow cards), Brent Anderson (attending tryouts at Mount Royal University in Calgary) and captain Matt Tokarik (knee injury).
The only goal of the game came in the 53rd minute, when an Impact 1 defender headed the ball backwards towards his own net and DeJong ran onto it and hammered it into the low, far corner of the net.
In the first half, Impact 1 keeper Adam Pinco got rocked when he was run into by Impact 2 striker Cohen Cassidy when both were going for the ball. Cassidy was given a yellow card, but Pinco was able to remain in the game.
