May 30, 2017 League 1 Ontario Match Recap: Oakville Blue Devils vs North Mississauga Panthers (from League 1 Ontario website)

Match Recap: Oakville Blue Devils 1 - 0 North Mississauga Panthers 
05/30/2017, 9:00am EDT
By League1 Ontario staff

Oakville's Logan Podrebarac (14') scored the only goal of the game with a laser from outside 
the box, while the Blue Devils' backstop Matt George kept another clean sheet to hand the home 
side a 1-0 win over North Mississauga Panthers on Sunday.

"It was a difficult game all around," said Oakville head coach, Duncan Wilde. 

"I thought it was decent conditions to play. We made a few changes as we had a U21 game 
yesterday and a Cup match coming up, so we made a few changes to the team. It worked well. 
I never thought we were in danger of losing the game."

"We just had chances to put it away and didn't, so we kept the game alive. They were always 
a threat on the counter-attack, they have some good pace and they had some good spells 
in midfield that gave us some concern."

"I just thought we were trying to push too much to get the second, and the last ten minutes 
we tried to sit and close the game. We managed it well, we took our points, and now we'll 
move on."

North Miss head coach Sam Medeiros was proud of his side's display against the 2015 League1 
Ontario champs, and felt his side had turned a corner in their development with this performance. 

"All hats off to Oakville," he said. "They are a good team, a good organization and they'll 
probably win the league. Having said that, hats off to North Miss too. This is the first time 
that they've actually come out and played from the first to the last minute." 

"As a coaching staff, we don't like the result, but the way they played was unbelieveable," 
he added. 

"We received a lot of complimentary comments from the officials and even some of the other 
players on the other team that I coached when they were younger, just saying they were very 
impressed with the team and we were unlucky to get out of here without a point." 

Although Oakville penetrated the North Miss defensive block on a number of occasions following 
the Podrebarac opener, they could not find a way through the final line of a committed 
Panthers side.

"I just thought our final ball was a bit lacking today," he said. "I think we had the ball 
across their six yard line four or five times and the timing of it we just didn't get right. 
It's difficult in a strong wind to get that final ball in exactly as you'd prefer, 
and it just didn't come off."

"We were two or three feet off target each time and I think more clinical balls in and 
we would have scored two or three. All in all they defended very well, credit to them. 
You can see how they are trying to play and I'm sure they are going to take some points 
off people." 

Oakville Blue Devils will next play Sanjaxx Lions on Sunday June 4 at Sheridan College, Oakville. 

North Mississauga Panthers will next play Sigma FC on Saturday June 3 at Hershey Centre, Mississauga.

back to 2017 League 1 Ontario Men's index

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