Sat May 21, 2016 League 1 Ontario--Masters Futbol vs North Toronto Nitros (from League 1 Ontario website)

North Toronto Nitros Rally Away To Masters And Win 4-1
05/22/2016, 12:15pm EDT
By League1 Ontario staff

North Toronto kept up their steady early season form with a third win, 
this time a 4-1 away final over Masters FA Saints. 

North Toronto's Anthony Sousa (13') opened the scoring, simultaneously 
extending his goal per match scoring rate to four matches in a row. 

Teammate Devon Bowyer (21') added another shortly thereafter to put 
Masters in a difficult position after only twenty minutes played. 

"This week we ran into some issues with personnel not being able to come 
to training due to their work situation," said Masters' technical 
director, Junior Groves. "We knew we would come into this match 
disorganized."

"The good thing is we see each week we are getting better. Despite 
our challenges today, we showed that we could have won the game. 
I'm proud of the boys, and it is the nature of the semi-professional 
environment that they must keep up with work as well. We had six 
key players away due to work this week, and that affects football 
preparation of course." 

As with their 10 man comeback against Durham the week before, Masters 
showed they can be most dangerous when facing adversity and started 
the second half with an intensity that surprised their visitors.

"In the first half we actually had an easy time of it, they coughed 
up the ball to us a fair bit," said North Toronto team official, 
Gary Fleming. "But in the second half they had a couple of chances 
before they scored, and we warned our team to be aware of that and 
they didn't listen." 

Isaiah Page (54') brought the Saints back into the contest after 
finishing a low cross into the box. 

However, North Toronto were spurred on by the Masters strike, scoring 
again through a penalty put away by McNaughton (72'), and a final 
nail in the coffin from Jaden Doyle (87').  

"Once it went 2-1 anything can happen, and then we got the 
penalty which calmed the nerves," said Fleming. "After they 
scored the goal though, they were pressing high and putting 
the pressure on our back four."

"I thought Jaden Doyle when he came on made an impact for us, 
and of course scored a goal."

Both sets of coaches were pleased with particular individuals, 
but not overly impressed with their team's performance.

"We gave a lot of young players a start today," said Groves. 
"Jae-Lin, who is a '99, played really well at right back for us. 
We had Devonte Brown, a '98, who controlled the number ten 
position really well today."

"I think at the end of the day we did some really good things 
but we didn't put our opportunities away," he added. 
"North Toronto did that and so they got the energy."

"The belief caused by that energy is something in football 
is very difficult to play against. We are playing without 
that belief right now, but believe me by the time it gets 
to mid-season teams will need to fear this group of players. 
They have some great speed and skill, but we can't get there 
on game day without having the full group at training. 
We're getting there though."

"Today we didn't do what the coach wanted to do," concluded 
Fleming. "We hit a lot of long balls and didn't really try 
to keep possession. So we'll work on that, but it was 
a welcome result." 

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