Pennington’s last minute heroics end inaugural soccer season
An ankle injury to Team Blue star Nils Blomberg may have ended any chance his club had of playoff success. His team lost in the semi-finals.
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Updated: November 05, 2009 4:22 PM
The Bowen Island Co-ed Play for Fun and Sport Semi-Competitive Soccer League (BICPFASSCSL) saved the most exciting game of the season for the end, as bitter rivals Team Red and Team White hooked up in a championship match that went right down to the final moments.
In a seesaw battle, Mark Pennington, a.k.a. The Seagull of Scarborough Rd, stuck a dagger – or perhaps a sharpened beak – into the heart of White with a goal with less than a minute remaining in regulation time giving the upstart Red machine, unable to beat regular season champs White during the season, a thrilling 5-4 victory.
Red Captain Burns Jennings opened the scoring with a goal in the first minute but Ben Sunderland quickly replied for White; those same two players traded scores again before French import Thierry Mohrbach scored twice for White. As time ran down in the first half it looked as if White was heading into the break with a 4-2 lead.
And then The Seagull, often perched in front of the opposition goal, swooped in.
Three minutes until the break Pennington, who scored all four of his club’s goals in a 4-3 win over Team Black in the semis, scored on a direct free kick that the White club inexplicably failed to make a wall for. It was a costly blunder as the goal energized the Red side, and Pennington struck again before the half, controlling a Chris Crowley through ball then drilling it past a diving White goalie, Freddy Fredrick.
Defence took over in the second half. Stuart Cole for White and Anne Wilson for Red led their teams back ends with stellar defensive play and the goals dried up. White’s Sarah Campbell twice came close to breaking the deadlock but each effort was thwarted by Red’s stalwart keeper, Chris Wilson.
The match appeared to be headed for extra time until Pennington took a pass from his fellow British ex-pat, Neill Squire and hammered home the winner.
Moments later, as darkness set in, time ran full and referee Morgan Quarry blew the final whistle of the season.
“What a game,” a jubilant Pennington said afterwards. “It will be hard to beat that game ever.”
With the ending of the first season the league announced that they will be back. “Due to the huge, positive reaction, with people asking to join and a waiting list,” Quarry, a league official, said. “We will be adding teams and players in the spring, likely March, and expanding the league.”
He said they would also be looking at lengthening the games (now 25 minute halves) and playing doubleheaders.
The awards for the year have been decided.
Historically the league, in its first year, gives each member of the local sporting press one vote to decide award winners. This year there was just the one island scribe covering soccer, so here are the winners:
League MVP: a tie between Tuen Schut of Team Blue and Sarah Campbell of Team White; Play-off MVP: Mark Pennington; Defensive Player of the Year, a tie between Shauna Jennings of Team Red and Keith Shapland of Team Black; Goalkeeper of the Year was tied between Dave Taylor, Chris Wilson, Joe Walker and Freddy Fredrick for keeping the games respectable despite a good deal of shoddy marking.
The Golden Boot for most regular season goals was a tie between Schut and Team Black’s Quarry with nine each and the MAPPA, the Most Amusing Player to Play Against, another tie, went to two players, both from Team White, Shelley Shannon and Ellie MacKay.
The entire league tied for Rookie of the Year.
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