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Silver lining for Broncos Men's Futsal
OLDS, AB - The Olds College Broncos Men's Futsal team came within a shootout of winning the first Alberta Colleges Athletic Conference tournament of the season, settling for a well deserved second place finish.
After going undefeated through the first three games of the tourney held at Keyano College in Fort McMurray, the Broncos pushed the defending ACAC Men's Futsal champion and top ranked Lakeland Rustlers to a shootout in the championship game on Sunday afternoon.
A pair of goals by Dave Garnett (Calgary, AB) had the Broncos and Rustlers tied at 2-2 at the end of regulation in the final. However, the Broncos were unable to complete the upset thanks to four of five shooters from the Rustlers hitting the mark in the shootout compared to only two for the Broncos.
To make it through to the final, the Broncos drew the Mount Royal Cougars 2-2 in Friday's opening fixture and followed that positive result up Saturday with 3-2 and 4-3 wins over the Medicine Hat Rattlers and the host Keyano Huskies respectively.
"This was a big weekend for the guys and the program," explained Broncos head coach Mark Oxer. "Although coming that close to winning was disappointing for the players they showed that we can play at this level when we stay organized and play with energy."
The coach gave the entire squad credit for the strong showing, but made special mention of the efforts of Garnett, who finished the weekend with four goals, Justin Schmidt (Falun, AB), who scored a spectacular brace in 20 seconds in the semi-final against Keyano, and goalkeeper Joel Ramsay (Calgary, AB) whose play Oxer described as "amazing in all four games."
The Broncos will take their second place ranking into the second and final regular season tournament in Calgary on the weekend of February 10-12 hosted by the MRU Cougars. The OC squad will be looking to qualify for the ACAC championship tournament March 10 and 11 in Medicine Hat.
