Cliff Avenue United won a pair of silver medals in Coastal B Cup finals in Richmond last weekend.
The under-17 boys’ dropped a narrow 2-1 decision to the Coquitlam Metro-Ford Nitro, while the u-18 girls’ met a similar 2-1 fate on penalty kicks at the hands of the Surrey United Elite.
The Cliff boys fell behind 2-0 at the half to the physical Nitro squad, but acquitted themselves much better in the second stanza, outscoring the eventual winners on Keenan Malloy’s free kick. Malloy’s shot from outside the 18-yard box appeared to glance off a defender, fooling the Metro-Ford keeper.
“As much as we had a ton of chances, we didn’t get a lot of opportunities on the ball,” said Cliff Avenue coach Vito Lore. “We were fighting the ball. We were unfortunate.”
Prior to the cup playdowns, the u-17 boys won the 4District championship for a second time.
This summer, Cliff will get another second chance to make amends at the provincial championships.
The u-18 Cliff girls also had plenty of opportunities to win in their match with the league champion from Surrey.
Cliff Avenue, who had earlier defeated Surrey in the league championship cup, widely outshot the Elite in the opening half but came away with a 1-1 draw at the interval on the game-tying goal by Chantelle Parra.
Surrey opened the scoring on its one and only shot on goal, while the North Burnaby club forced many chances, including a ball off the crossbar and at least 10 corner kick opportunities, said Cliff coach Dino Piccolo.
The second half was a closer affair.
“We just couldn’t muster a chance to score (in the latter frame). It just looked like one of those days,” said Piccolo, who has coached a core group of the girls since u-6.
The shootout session went to a seventh shooter before Surrey United took the cup with a 4-3 advantage in penalty kicks.
Piccolo was not altogether disappointed though. In the team’s four seasons at Cliff, the girls have finished among the top three clubs.
“It’s been a really good season and four good years,” he added.
