THUNDER BAY – For a friendly, there was an awful lot of bad blood on the Chapples Field pitch.
It was clear the Winnipeg Lions had come to town to win but were outmatched from start to finish on Saturday night and it was the Thunder Bay Chill who were smiling in the end, scoring three times on each side of the halftime break and blanking their opponent 6-0.
Freshman striker Mugsy Umar and rookie midfielder Hugo Tavares each scored twice, with singles going to Irish imports Brandon Bermingham and Jamie Wynne.
It was just the all-around performance the team was looking for as it readies itself for its USL 2 season opener next weekend on the road against FC Manitoba.
“It was important,” Wynne said. “In the first half it took us a few minutes to get settled into the new formation we’re working on. But I think once we got going in the second half, it really showed. Overall it was a good performance.”
It took Wynne until the 10th minute to get the Chill on the board, to the delight of the 431 in attendance for the pre-season match. Wynne broke in on Lions keeper Jean Michel Ngenzi, who’s slide allowed the Chill forward to flip the ball in the air, leap over the fallen netminder and deposit the ball in the Winnipeg net.
Bermingham double the lead in the 31st, on a cross from Wynne, and five minutes later Umar made it 3-0, driving it home from the left side of the box.
“It felt nice because which winger doesn’t want to score two goals in their debut. It was like a confidence booster, for sure,” said Umar, one of 15 players chosen to play for Bayern World Squad, taking on professionals as part of a reality television series.
Umar said the Chill is using the two friendlies – Game 2 goes at 1 p.m. on Sunday – to work on chemistry and try a few things out before the games start counting in the standings.
“We try to take it one game at a time,” he said. “Today was a really good performance and hopefully we just get better each game and hopefully in August we’re playing for that championship.”
It was more of the same for the Chill in an equally physical second half.
Umar needed just three minutes to up Thunder Bay’s lead to 4-0, then 13 minutes later Tavares took a pass from Wynne and fired it home, a play kept alive by the dazzling footwork of former Premier Development League most valuable player Sullivan Silva.
The Chill finished the game with a 19-minute one-man advantage after Winnipeg’s A.J. Naumiok picked up his second yellow card of the night, earning an automatic ejection.
Tavares added his second of the night in the 75th to round out the scoring.
Thunder Bay coach Tony Colistro was impressed with the performance.
“We were able to get a lot of players into the game tonight. Tomorrow we’ll get a lot of other players into the game. That’s what these games are for,” Colistro said. “We want to see how the chemistry is. We saw a lot today. It was a good start, but the next few days are going to be important.”
Nathaneal Sallah and Andre Schlaefli split time in the Thunder Bay net, the Chill out-shooting Winnipeg 18-3, including 10-1 on target.
