Image Credit: TRU WolfPack Athletics/Andrew Snucins

By Adam Donnelly

TRU WOLFPACK MEN'S SOCCER

WolfPack Men’s Soccer look to pause and reset after winless start to season

Sep 6, 2023 | 11:30 AM

KAMLOOPS — The 2022 season was something out of a storybook for the Thompson Rivers University (TRU) Men’s Soccer team, as the team won three consecutive games on penalty kicks to claim the program’s first-ever U Sports National Championship.

However, the team hasn’t had the same success to begin the 2023 campaign, as the club is still searching for its first win after a 0-4 start.

For head coach John Antulov, there’s an obvious explanation for that tough start.

“I think mindset,” Antulov says. “One of the things we’ve been able to do over the last eight seasons is we were the little guys, we always had to work hard for everything that we got and I think we got away from that, first four games.”

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After a pair of losses on the road to open up the year, TRU lost both games of its home opener weekend — a 1-0 heartbreaker to the University Victoria Vikes and a 4-0 loss to the UBC Thunderbirds — the very team they defeated in the national title game last year at Hillside Stadium.

“We’ve hit some crossbars, you know, hitting the goalkeeper. We’ve had some Grade-A scoring opportunities the first three games,” Antulov tells CFJC Sports. “Last year they went in, this year, not so much. [In] the first three games, I think based on play and opportunities, we could have got results from those games. But now — I’ll use a hockey analogy — the guys are squeezing their stick a little bit tighter.”

Fifth-year midfielder Patrick Izett is one of the guys the ‘Pack will look to in order to spark the offence.

“When we score that first goal, I think once that happens the floodgates will open,” Izett says. “They’ll all just keep coming after that.”

Izett has thoughts on which teammate might be the one to get that first goal of the season.

“I’m going to put my money on Alessandro [Comita],” Izett says. “Or maybe Harry Taylor off a set piece.”

At the other end of the pitch, goalkeeper Olivier Jumeau has been the hard-luck loser of all four games this year for TRU. Despite those losses, he’s able to remain positive and believes in his teammates.

“Sometimes sport doesn’t go your way,” Jumeau says. “To lose in the 90^th minute after losing to Trinity in the 86^th just a week ago — it’s tough. The boys, in private, we’ve had a lot of meetings and said ‘Look, we’re going to come back stronger from this, and when we do, we’re going to be a force to be reckoned with.’ Our mentality right now is we might be pretty close to rock bottom, but if we can come through this, we can come through anything.”

This weekend, the WolfPack heads to Prince George to take on the 1-3 UNBC Timberwolves in a pair of contests.

For Izett and the rest of the group, the memory of that National Championship remains. However, it’s time to focus on the here and now.

“That was the message that we tried to say to the group, is that Nationals is over,” Izett says. “Obviously that was a super-high moment for us as a group, but this is this year, and we need to get back to basics and prove everyone wrong.”