Cowichan LMG clinched their fifth straight Garrison Cup as Vancouver Island Soccer League Div. 1 champions with a dramatic 3-2 win over Nanaimo FC at the Sherman Road soccer turf on Saturday night.
It was an achievement that head coach Glen Martin wasn’t quite able to visualize in September, when Cowichan seemed short on players, and was looking at moving forward without stalwards Craig Gorman, Paddy Nelson and Cooper Barry, who left Cowichan for Bays United.
“At the start of the year, we were just hoping to hang in there,” Martin said. “With the number of bodies we had and the big three gone.”
Gorman transferred back to Cowichan midseason, and helped the team rise up the Div. 1 standings. Cowichan now has 40 points, putting them out of range of second-place Westcastle.
The five consecutive league titles puts Cowichan one away from the record set by Gorge from 2004 to 2009. Cowichan has also made the Provincial Cup tournament 10 straight years, the lontest current streak in the VISL.
Gorman opened the scoring on Saturday with a corner kick directly into the net at the 16-minute mark. Cowichan played well in the early going, but Nanaimo turned the tide, then tied the game on a questionable penalty kick in the 40th minute.
“We were getting outplayed,” Martin admitted. “I was hoping we could get to the half at 1-0 and regroup. They kind of deserved it because they outplayed us in the second half of the half.”
Martin made some changes to his lineup at halftime that made a difference as the game continued: veteran Tyler Hughes replaced the injured Stevan Zorich in the midfield, and Jose Muro went in at left back, sliding Keevan Webb from left to right to replace Adyn Lamont.
Igor Liah put Cowichan ahead at 77 minutes, and it felt like they had the game in hand for all of one minute before Nanaimo tied it again. Finally, Jordan Korven put the game away with a header off a corner kick by Russell Lederer.
Cowichan has one league game left, against Gorge at Hampton Park on Friday. After that, the team won’t be in action until mid April, when the provincial tournament begins.