VISL Round-up: Hat trick of hat tricks highlights opening weekend of VISL action

We’re delighted to add coverage of the Vancouver Island Soccer League (VISL) to AFTN from this season, complimenting our existing comprehensive coverage of the local football scene. Our aim is to bring you a regular weekly round-up thanks to information supplied by VISL President Vince Greco, with a little of bit of additional writing supplied by us here at AFTN. Let’s kick things off with a look at the opening weekend in VISL Division 1.

The VISL top flight, Division 1, has completed its opening weekend with all five games being played, and with no snow to be found!

The theme of the week seemed to be hat tricks, with three separate players recording one in their respective games.

A couple players that were involved in last year’s scoring race got right back into it, with Cowichan FC’s Patrick Nelson scoring four goals in his side’s win over Westcastle United, and Gorge FC’s Jon Shah scoring three in his team’s victory over Lakehill FC. They were joined by Vic West rookie Matteo Ventura, who hit three in their win over Vantreights.

Some might say they were surprised to see as many goals as they did; it was obvious that the newcomers to the division did not have it easy by any means.

Here’s how the opening weekend’s action in Division 1 played out.

Our featured match saw Gorge FC play host to Lakehill FC at Hampton Park in Saanich on Friday night, which ended in a comfortable 4-1 victory for the home side.

Lakehill came out very strong and playing well. They controlled the game for the first 15, looked dangerous, and were creating opportunity. After narrowly missing a couple opportunities, Gorge made Lakehill pay by scoring just before the 20 mark through Jon Shah.

This seemed to give Gorge a bit of a boost and play levelled out some. As the half was coming to completion, Lakehill were awarded a penalty after an extended arm batted down the ball. Jyotish Khanna tucked it away and it was all even at 1-1 going into halftime.

After the restart, Gorge caught Lakehill flat footed and it did not take them long to go ahead as Shah got his second of the night. Then the nail in the coffin came as Drew Brittain put Gorge up 3-1 with just over 10 minutes left in the game. It was all Gorge at this point, but not being done yet, Shah got his hat trick with eight minutes remaining to cap off an excellent opening night for both himself and Gorge.

In other results from the opening weekend, Bays United Liquor Plus saw off Vancouver Island Wave 2-0 at home on Friday night. Adam Almeida and Thorsten Schaub got the goals and Ethan May recorded the clean sheet.

Saturday afternoon saw Cowichan romp to a 5-1 victory at home to Westcastle United thanks to those four goals from Patrick Nelson and another from Craig Gorman. Maurizio Abdi got Westcastle’s sole counter.

Later that evening, Nanaimo United and Comox Valley United played out a 0-0 draw.

The final Division 1 match of the opening weekend took place on Sunday afternoon as Vic West handed out a 5-0 away thumping at Vantreights thanks to Matteo Ventura’s hat trick and goals from Leo Falzon and Nils Webber.

That left the Division 1 table looking as follows after the opening round of matches:

For all the latest news, results, and fixtures, visit VISL.org.