Burnaby and Harbourside share spoils in six-goal L1BC men’s division thriller on opening weekend

(Photo Credit: Hazel May)

It was a match fitting of a historic inaugural game, as League1 BC new boys Burnaby FC played out a six-goal thriller with the visiting Harbourside FC at Burnaby Lake on Sunday afternoon in men’s division action.

From kick-off, the first 10 minutes were extremely frantic, with Burnaby having the majority of the attacking play.

But it was Harbourside that opened the scoring in the 33rd minute with Billy Bagiopolous converting on a breakaway.

The Nanaimo side’s lead wasn’t to last long when Emiliano Brienza leveled the score five minutes later from the penalty spot, after being bundled over in the box. Harbourside, obviously rattled by the penalty, still hadn’t got back into the game, when Lachlan Will put Burnaby 2-1 a minute later.

Despite now being down, Harbourside finally managed to settle and pulled the game level before the half through a superb Suka Behery strike.

The second half started with less intensity than the first, with Harbourside having the majority of the possession.

And Harbourside retook the lead in the 54th minute when Bagiopolous bagged his second of the game, scoring a clean goal after an inch perfect cross from Behery from the left wing.

It looked as if Harbourside finally had control of the game, until Burnaby made a series of substitutions in minutes 78 and 79. Two minutes later, the fresh impetus saw Will tie the score up at 3-3 after a breakaway goal.

Neither side could find the winner and the teams had to settle for a point apiece.

Postgame, Harbourside head coach Kevin Lindo said he was glad to get the game against Burnaby FC out of the way early in the season, as he felt that they would only get stronger throughout the season. He also stated that he thought 3-3 was a fair result.

Burnaby FC head coach Todd May: “I’m always disappointed when we don’t win, having said that, we have only come together for four training sessions, and we are missing eight unavailable players. We have a fantastic group of boys with a lot of talent, so I’m looking forward to building this project into a league powerhouse.”

FINAL SCORE: Burnaby FC 3 – 3 Harbourside FC

BURNABY: Evan Ince, Ty Pound, Hamish Ogden, Nic Apostal (Cole Toupin 46′) (Justin George 82′), Emiliano Brienza (Ryan Torresan 84′), Emile Saimovici, Lachlan Will, Aaron Colbourne (R Yassin 78′), Kyle Dent (Arjun Mann 79′), Tristan Torresan, Brandon Torresan [Subs Not Used: Jake McCall, Kiarash Ahmadpour]

HARBOURSIDE: Cal Weir, Yusuf Osman, Wyatt Lyon, Cam Shaw (Daniel Macaskill 56′), Fergus Hall, Suka Behery (Hatim El Azhari 88′), Ben Creswick (Andres Tovar 76′), Billy Bagiopolous, Michael Hepelle (Senay Haile 46′), Charlie Purcell, Tristan Cornwall [Subs Not Used: Matthew Scott McConnach, Jonathan McKenzie, Matthew Coburn]

We have two photo galleries from the match below and over on our Flickr page. The first is from Tom Ewasiuk (@Residual Image) and the second from Hazel May (@HMM) and John May (@shoots). Click to view them: