THUNDER BAY – The offence got to work early in the opening half and the keeper brought it home in the second.
Nick Phyllis, in the 18th, and Alex Iossa, in the 27th, staked the Thunder Bay Chill to a 2-0 first-half lead, and Erik Aegard stood tall in the box after the break, as the visiting Winnipeg Lions upped their attack in search of the back of the net.
The Lions got one back, but a controversial goal off the foot of Phyllis – on a shot that appeared to hit the crossbar and bounce out of harm’s way – provided some insurance and the Chill hung on to down Winnipeg 3-1 on Saturday night, the first of two friendlies the teams are playing this weekend at Chapples Field.
The Chill are using the exhibition matches to tune up for the USA Cup, an under-19 event in Minneapolis against some of the top team’s in the age group.
Phyllis, 22, won’t be a part of that squad, but said it was a chance for the Chill to get game tested against better competition, a couple of weeks after they made easy working of Winnipeg’s Bonivital SC, a team they beat 7-0 and 4-1 in late May.
“We knew it was a tougher team than the first Winnipeg team that we played against. I think we just wanted to come in and have a good performance, hustle and get the three points. And we’re going to do the same tomorrow,” Phyllis said.
Getting a couple of quick goals was key, he added. But by no means did it mean they had the game in the bag.
“We couldn’t let off the gas. We had to keep going.”
His first goal was about an easy a tap-in as one gets in the game of soccer, a cross-the-box pass from Iossa that found Phyllis wide open, leaving Winnipeg keeper Jean Michel Ngenzi no chance to slide across and stop the ball from crossing the line.
“You just have to hustle and get there and the goals will come,” Phyllis said.
Coach Marco Colistro said he thought his team had fortune on its side taking the early 2-0 lead, adding there is plenty of room for improvement.
“I would have liked us to have a little more of the ball than we did. I think we had to suffer a little bit defensively to kind of stay in the game, which is OK, but we’re fortunate that we got the early goals so we were able to do that. We want to be a little bit better on the ball,” Colistro said.
Aegard had his hands full in the final 45 minutes of play.
In the 50th he had to race out to stop Matthew Dos Anjos Aquino on a break, then 13 minutes later he made a diving stop on left-back Joseph Green, who raced down the left side of the field and cut across. About a minute later Winnipeg’s B.J. Kabamba drove the ball over Aegard’s net from just outside the box.
Dos Arjos Aquino finally solved Aegard in the 65th, burying the ball after the Chill keeper made back-to-back point-blank stops.
“He kept us in the game, probably won us the game. He made timely saves, commanded his area. He was really good for us today,” Colistro said of his last line of defence.
Phyllis added to Thunder Bay’s lead in the 68th, and said he wasn’t sure what happened on the play.
“I leave that one up to the sidelines, but I called it a goal and a goal is a goal,” Phyllis said.
The Chill and Lions meet again on Sunday at 1 p.m.
