Briana Shymanski/Rocky View Publishing

Bow Valley's Kan Zilligan and Bert Church's Mark Cooper battle for the ball in the final game of the RVSA boys soccer season. The Chargers defeated the Bobcats 2-0 to advance to the playoffs.

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Bobcats denied playoff spot

It was a heartbreaking end to the Bow Valley Bobcats boys’ soccer season, as they lost 2-0 to the Bert Church Chargers, May 16.

“It was a disappointing loss,” said Bobcats Assistant Coach Chris Kay. “We’ve had a great start to our season. We played solid defensively, so to give up two goals, we were pretty disappointed.”

After holding the game to a 0-0 tie heading into the second half, the Bobcats were awarded a penalty shot. However, Bert Church keeper Rohan Bagga made the save and the rebound was cleared out of bounds.

The back-and-forth play between the two teams continued, as both traded scoring chances until the last five minutes when the Chargers’ Tanner Cooper scored on a controversial play. Cooper seemed to be a step ahead of the last Bobcat defender when he got possession of the ball, but no call was made and the goal counted to give Bert Church a 1-0 lead. Brendan Besler would score for the Chargers shortly after Cooper to put the game out of reach for the Bobcats.

“It’s tough,” said Kay. “You see players’ head go down right away when a goal like that goes in. When you go from being in control and about to take a 1-0 lead and then to go down (by a goal), it’s deflating. I think the first half we controlled the play and we probably should’ve scored on a few of our chances, but we just didn’t get lucky enough to put one in the back of the net.”

After losing their first two games of the season, two back-to-back wins have saved their season. With the win over the Bobcats, the Chargers earned the fourth and final playoff spot. However, the game wasn’t without its tense moments.

“It was nerve wracking, especially when they got that penalty kick,” said Chargers Coach Fraser Hunter. “We were nervous. We knew we needed to win and it showed in our performance. We were trying to push it rather than waiting for it to happen.”

The Chargers will play the first-place George McDougall Mustangs in one of the RVSA soccer semi-finals while the other will feature the Chestermere Lakers and the Cochrane Cobras. The games took place May 22. (Results and location of the games were not available before press time.)