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Posted by
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November 23, 2015 |
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Aaron Nielsen
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@ENBSports
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It's been another dominant year for Ontario in terms of the highest levels of Canadian Men's Soccer. As written last week, York University won the CIS Championship, over the summer K-W United won the American based PDL championship, and in the 2015 Canadian Challenge Trophy, the senior men's club tournament, London Marconi beat Edmonton Scottish to win the championship. In a very competitive League One Ontario, new club Oakville Blue Devils beat out Woodbridge, Vaughan, Sigma and TFC Academy to win the season title and then beat PLSQ side CS Mont-Royal Outemont 5-3 to win the Inter-Provincial cup. Oakville has a strong history of soccer in Ontario, with the Blue Devils playing their games at Sheridan Stadium where Sheridan won the Canadian College Championship last year.
To be fair, if we are talking about CCAA soccer and especially the OCAA, the team to follow is the Humber Hawks who won four OCAA Championship from 2010-2013, including two national championships. Humber even won the division last season over Sheridan, but Sheridan made the National Tournament as hosts. Going into 2015 it looked to be Humber and Sheridan fighting for the OCAA Championship along with Ottawa-based Algonquin College, who were the winners of the 2014 OCAA Championship. They had also won six OCAA Championships in a row prior to Humber’s dominance, including the 2006 National Championship.
Like York did this year with Michael Cox, Humber brought in a player with a great soccer pedigree in Jaineil Hoilett, who is the brother of Canadian National Team player David Junior. The younger Hoilett has had a strong soccer background including experience in Germany, playing for Toronto FC’s reserve team in 2014 as a trialist, being invited to the MLS Combine last year and drafted by FC Dallas in the 2015 MLS Superdraft. Hoilett made a big impact as an automatic starter scoring five goals in the OCAA season and Humber College’s only player voted to the 2015 CCAA All-Canadian Team.
Hoilett was not the only player to make an impact on the Ontario college soccer scene. Humber had a good core of seniors including defender Joshua Paredes-Proctor who played games with the Toronto FC PDL team this summer, defender Dominic Roberts who played in the PDL last summer with the Thunder Bay Chill, and midfielder Jesse Assing who played with University of Toronto in CIS. Junior Daniele Clemente played in the CSL with York Region Shooters, while sophomore Patrick Majcher played previously in Poland and was called up to the Canadian U-20 team in 2012.
However, the biggest difference for the Humber in 2015 were their freshman. Along with Hoilett, the Hawks added Joshua Mills who has been identified as a player with a great future by officials in League One Ontario for his play with ANB Futbol. Sonan Askndar, who was the leading scorer in the Ontario Soccer League in 2014, and Luca Baldassare who scored seven goals in just four OCAA regular season games this season.
Humber started the season with five wins including a 1-0 victory over Sheridan, but were held 0-0 to George Brown which seemed to light a fire as the Hawks would defeat Seneca 10-1, U of T Mississauga 9-1, get their revenge against George Brown 5-0 and win the OCAA Central Division with a 3-2 win in Oakville against Sheridan. In the OCAA tournament, Humber got by Fleming in the first round 3-2, beat Fanshawe 2-0 and won the OCAA title against Algonquin 3-0, where defenders Paredes-Proctor (2), and Kingsley Boasiako scored the goals.
Humber advanced to the CCAA Championship as the number 1 seed, which was held in Montreal. Humber started the tournament with an easy 6-0 win over Quebec-school Champlain and in the semi-finals saw a OCAA Championship rematch with Algonquin where Humber held on to a 1-0 win. This set up a final between Humber and BC school Capilano. Capilano had won CCAA Championships in 2003 and 2008, although the past few years Vancouver Island and Douglas have had better success than the North Vancouver school, so both were looking to rebound, from their standards, a disappointing 2014 season.
The final itself turned out to be a game influenced by the referee with Roberts being sent off for his second yellow card 10 minutes into the game. Then in the 30th minute Humber were down to nine men when Parades-Proctor was also sent off for a red card that was unjustly given. Despite being at a huge disadvantage, Humber tried to play the ball forward and were given a penalty in the second half, although Jesse Assing missed the opportunity. Capilano then tried to score the winner only to be stopped by Humber keeper Eugenio Garro who made some good saves sending the game into extra time and then Penalties. In the shutout, Humber went a perfect five for five where Garro dived to save Capilano’s fourth penalty allowing Michael Aigbokie score the winning penalty giving Humber the 2015 CCAA Championship.
Humber finished the season with 14 wins and two draws, if you include the finals, and outscored their opponents 59 goals to nine to finished deserved champions. It was a disappointment for the finals itself as through the referee's influence it did not allow Humber to shine in the match, but congrats to head coach Michael Aquino and the team to battle through adversary to win the title. This gives further proof that soccer in Ontario is continuing to improve and deserves more attention than it is currently given by larger media sources.
It also shows further need for more professional based clubs in Canada and brings hope that if a city like Hamilton gets an expansion USL or NASL club, there are a number of quality players in the region who could make that club competitive.
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Aaron Neilsen is a co-founder of Prospect XI (Prospect Eleven), a scouting network and online magazine dedicated to tracking/highlighting young players that refer to as "prospects" as well as their development pathways both within North America and worldwide. Follow PXI via www.prospectxi.com or on twitter @ProspectXI.
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