Behind 5-2 after the first half, it was a difficult match for Penticton Tim Horton’s under-21 Pinnacles coach Tony Munoz to watch.
Pinnacles forward Dan Hunt completed his hat trick early in the second half to cut the Okanagan FC lead to 5-3, but that’s as close as the Pinnacles would get allowing three more goals as Okanagan FC cruised to an easy win.
Munoz chalked up the loss to his players not showing up again.
“No team is good enough to do that,” said Munoz of their deficit. “We showed signs when we were two goals behind. Unlucky, we didn’t have the goals when we needed them.”
Having no luck struck the Pinnacles midway through the half when Matt Reese had a breakaway and placed his shot in the chest of goalkeeper Jacob Rivet. Instead of the score becoming 5-4 for Okanagan FC, just minutes later the visiting team made it 6-3.
“The biggest problem I saw was the heart wasn’t there,” said Munoz. “That’s all I can say, the heart wasn’t there. Every single one of the players know, they know what they need to do, they need to do some deep searching, soul searching and show up on Sunday to either play soccer or don’t show up at all.”
The Pinnacles had plenty of chances to score, including Randy Hubber who broke in alone and couldn’t find the back of the net. One of his better chances near the end of the opening half, he watched the ball roll past the keeper and the net.
Hunt, who got the Pinnacles on the scoreboard not long after Okanagan FC opened the scoring in the game, was disappointed by the loss and not in a mood to talk about it.
“We had one forward score three goals,” said Munoz of his injured player. “In most average soccer games, that would be enough to win a game. You get 11 guys like that, we win every single game.”
Okanagan FC coach Dave Broadhurst was very pleased with how they played.
“We were missing a number of players because of graduation, injuries,” said Broadhurst. “We had to bring players in from the under 16 Y-League team. I was really pleased with the way they played.”
Carrying the offence for Okanagan FC was Enzo Paal with a hat trick, Austin Jones with two, and singles by Logan Abbott, Dylan Abbott and Andrew Stevenson.
Going forward to their final home game at King’s Park Sunday at 2 p.m., Pinnacles (4-4-1) forward Jeremy Pereira said they must push on and bury their chances.
“We’re going to go the next game and make sure we stop our skid that we got going on,” he said. “We don’t want to walk off the field and hang
our heads.”