The competition gets stiffer but the score stays the same for Squamish FC, winning their second consecutive Vancouver Metro Soccer League (VMSL) Cup game 5-1 against Norvan JB's at Brennan Park Saturday (Feb. 23).The victory advances Squamish to the final group of 16 VMSL Division 2 teams out of 64 entered in the Cup. They are the only Division 2 'B' team, besides Douglas Park and top-ranked Bombastic SC A, that survived the first two rounds of single knockout play.Squamish hadn't played a home game since Dec. 8 and only played two road matches since then. But the blue and white machine looked well maintained on the recently reopened Brennan Park fields despite being away from them for more than nine weeks.Dale Venekamp said better communication throughout the lineup is showing big bonuses to a team that started off the season relatively quiet. And according to manager Dave Harrison, the improved talk on the field is a sign the first-year team is coming into its own. "[Communication] comes hand in hand when a team's actually gelling really well, and we're really doing that right now," said Harrison. "And everybody put an effort in today."Chris Golaiy opened up the scoring in the first half after getting a break from Gary O'Neil and chipping it over the charging Norvan keeper. After regaining control of the ball, Golaiy powered it past the Norvan defender who rushed to fill the empty goal.Norvan responded quickly with a goal, but Raj Sehra capitalized on a pass from Mark Sedgwick and blasted a high ball home to regain the lead. Russell Joel finished the first-half scoring by flying down the right side and banking a shot off a Norvan defender who was trying to block the angle.In the second half, Sedgwick tried to catch his opponents off guard by tapping the ball over to Mike Emerick on a penalty kick before Norvan could set up a wall of bodies. Emerick was quick to react but sent the ball wide left."Usually the other team expects you to ask for 10 [yards] so they're kind of screaming at each other to form a wall and Sedge looked at me and winked and said 'go for the quickie' and I should have buried that one,"said Emerick.The pair hooked up soon after as Emerick sent Sedgwick a beautiful cross from the right side and Sedgwick buried the ball, upping the score 4-1.With Norvan pressing most of their players offensively in a last-ditch effort to battle back, Keegan Doherty cleared a long ball up the middle to a wide open Rod Wilson who broke in alone to beat the keeper. Squamish plays round three at home against Westside Rino B but the date has yet to be announced.Nevertheless, the guys are becoming more cohesive each week so they will continue to pose a serious challenge to more experienced teams. And most importantly, said Emerick, players on Squamish FC have a tremendous amount of confidence in one another. "It's nice because you play with a lot of teams in Squamish and you can't trust a lot of the players on your team so you just end up hogging the ball or something. With these guys you get the ball and there's really no excuse for losing it, you got to find somebody open and you know you can trust them."
