Umeh's Hat Trick Locks Up Title

(OTTERBURNE) – A 5-2 win over the second-place Brandon Bobcats ensured Providence top spot in the MCAC Men’s Soccer standings, as the conference’s top two met on Sunday afternoon in the final match of the regular season for both teams.

Garreth Rayner (Johannesburg, SA) opened the scoring for the hosts in the 12^th minute, one-timing Gurkarandeep Bhangu’s (Prince George, BC) cross passed Bobcat’s goalkeeper Matheus Souza for his fifth of the season.

The Pilots went ahead by two when Johannes Barnes (Brampton, ON) free-kick from mid-field was turned in by Joel Umeh (Calgary, AB) in the 21^st minute. Umeh would collect his second of the match and seventh of the season, five minutes later when he jumped on a loose ball in the Bobcats’ penalty area, created his own space and put the Pilots up 3.

Julien Dizengremel would get one back for Brandon before halftime as the teams went into the break with the hosts leading, 3-1.

12 minutes after play resumed, Providence scored a fourth goal and regained their three-goal advantage. In the 67^th minute, Umeh and Rashard Hibbert (Brampton, ON) dribbled around a charging Souza, and both watched as a recovering Bobcat’s defender swept the loose ball across the line. Hibbert would be credited with the goal.

With the score 4-2 in favour of the hosts, Umeh scored his hat-trick in the 82^nd minute, left-footing in his team-leading eighth goal of the season from a Rayner-delivered corner-kick.

The win was a perfect way to end a very successful regular season for rookie head coach Giovanni Benitez Friesen. The captain-turned-manager has led the Pilots to a record of 9-1-2 and the program’s first regular season title in well over a decade.

Entering as the top-seed in next weekend’s MCAC Men’s Soccer Championships, the Pilots will draw the 2022 winners, University of St-Boniface in an undesirable semifinal matchup next Saturday. Les Rouges snuck into the fourth spot on the final day of the regular season, leapfrogging the idle ACC Cougars on the wings of a 3-0 win over the third-seed CMU Blazers.