VMSL Round-up: Rovers Tigers drop more points as Pegasus tie it up at the top

Well, better late than never, and it doesn’t get much later than just a couple of hours before this weekend’s matches kick off, but here’s our round-up of all the happenings in Week 11 of Vancouver Metro Soccer League (VMSL) action.

The 2017/18 VMSL season reached the halfway point last weekend, with all the divisions beautifully poised for an exciting end to the campaign.

In the Premier Division, season long leaders BCT Rovers Tigers United dropped points for the second straight week, allowing Surrey rivals Pegasus to draw level with them at the top, while Provincial Cup champions Club Inter could pull to within one point of the top two now if they win their two matches in hand.

Fresh from their win over Rovers Tigers United the week before, Pegasus continued their excellent form with a 3-1 win over CCB LFC United on Friday night at Newton. But they were made to work hard for the three points, storming back after going behind to a Boris Si goal at the start of the second half.

A brace from Gurmaan Jhaj, and a sixth of the season for Azad Palani, in the last half hour saw the Horsemen through in the end and move into a share of first place with Rovers Tigers United.

After nine wins out of nine to kick off the season, Rovers Tigers made it one point from their last two matches after playing out a 0-0 draw with Croatia SC at Burnaby Lake on Friday night.

This was our match of the week and we expected a goalfest, with the league leaders average 3.6 goals in their first ten matches and third placed Croatia 2.6, but it wasn’t to be, despite an amazingly fast paced first ten minutes that saw the action veer from end to end, with both teams having great opportunities to open the scoring.

The game settled down and Rovers Tigers took over to some extent, creating several chances but finding the final touch missing or being thwarted by a fantastic goalkeeping display from the Croatia keeper, who dealt with everything the league leaders threw at him.

Croatia will have been the happier of the two sides with the point by the end, but they also will be rueing some of their own opportunities to pull off the victory.

The point keeps Croatia in third but they are joined there on 21 points by Club Inter, who ground out their second straight 1-0 win on Saturday, with Milad Mehrabi scoring the winners in the victory over West Van.

Inter now sit seven points off the top two, but with two games in hand after the postponements for their trip to this year’s Nationals. That sets up this weekend’s Match of the Week at Memorial Turf South on Saturday afternoon when Rovers Tigers United come to town. Kick off is 4pm and it should be an intriguing match up, with Inter looking to avenge their 6-2 defeat to kick off the new season.

Coquitlam Metro Ford Wolves continued their resurgence with a 4-1 win at home to Campo Atletico on Friday night. Rino’s Tigers also hit four, seeing off Westside 4-2 on Saturday, while Richmond Hibernian beat EDC Burnaby 2-0 in the other Premier match from last weekend.

All of that leaves the Premier Division table looking as follows at the halfway point of the season:

So a lot to play for in the second half of the season. You can find all your VMSL news, results, and this weekend’s fixtures, at VMSLsoccer.com. Some cracking games this weekend. Hope to see you out at some of them.