After the women’s soccer game wrapped up, it was time for the men to take the pitch as they were set to host the McMaster Marauders, as well.
In the 10th minute, OUA leading goal scorer, Niklas Bauer, was given a red card and subsequently ejected for kicking one of the Maruaders players in the head as he fell to the ground on the McMaster goal line.
The Marauder’s defender was clearly displeased by the late kick and quickly threw a punch while Bauer was on the ground, but only received a yellow card for his misconduct.
This caused a stir from the rest of the team, who were more than upset at the referee’s judgement on this sequence.
Head coach Mario Halapir was also annoyed that his team has been on the short end of more than a few calls so far this season.
“Being down a man, we’re fucking down a man for 87 minutes of that game. This is a third place game that we’re playing for and you want to give the kids a proper chance to compete for that. When you have refereeing, this isn’t the first time, this is the fourth time this year that we’ve had a game taken away from us by referees. It’s disgusting and shocking. I just don’t see referees capable of doing this level of game. It just shouldn’t be allowed,” Halapir said.
In the 21st minute, the Marauders had a great chance as they chipped the ball behind the Laurier keeper, Rocco Strazzella, but a Laurier defender was able to get back and chip the ball out of the air right before it crossed the goal line to keep this one a scoreless draw.
In the 31st minute, a beautiful chip shot got over the Marauders goalkeeper’s head and a Laurier striker was there to tap it home and give the Golden Hawks a 1-0 lead.
In the 33rd minute, the Marauders answered right back as they ripped a shot past the Laurier keeper.
Halapir was visibly displeased by the missed hand ball from the referee and kicked some pylons onto the pitch after the goal. The referee spoke to Halapir, but nothing further was to come of it.
The game went into the half a 1-1 tie.
The Marauders were pressured after the break and hemmed Laurier into their own half as the Golden Hawks couldn’t get anything going.
It started to look like being down a man for almost the entire game was beginning to catch up with the Golden Hawks.
At the 64th minute, the Marauders were able to convert on a beautiful cross and one touch goal that gave the Marauders a 2-1 lead.
At the 78th minute, the Marauders had a partial break and the Laurier goalkeeper made an incredible jumping save to keep the deficit to only one.
In the 83rd minute, Laurier conceded another goal after from another nice cross in the box that managed to beat the Laurier goalkeeper.
Laurier was unable to come back and dropped this crucial third place match 2-1 to the Mauraders..
“I’m proud of them. There’s not much else you can say. We work so hard to take anything away from our guys for working as hard as they did. I don’t want to do that. We made some crucial errors even though we were down a man, but we made some crucial errors and all of our hard work almost went to waste, but I give every one of our guy’s credit for the way they competed out there,” Halapir said.
Halapir finally reflected on the game by saying, “We’ve got to pick up our heads. This game is done like every other game we’ve played before. It’s disappointing, but we have to move on.”
The Golden Hawks playoffs begin tonight as they host the Western Mustangs at University Stadium. Kickoff is set for 7:00 p.m. as the two sides battle it out under the lights