Men's Soccer strikes OUA gold

Nov 7th, 2004
by Jeff Renaud

The Western Mustangs won gold Sunday at the Ontario University Athletics (OUA) men’s soccer championship at the Brescia Fields in London, defeating the Toronto Varsity Blues 1-0 on penalty kicks. After 90 minutes of regulation and 30 additional minutes of overtime, the game finished in a 0-0 tie. During the penalty kicks, Western goalkeeper Haidar Al-Shaibani (London) stopped two attempts to lead the Mustangs to their second OUA men’s soccer championship in as many years. Fourth-year Martin Painter (London) scored the eventual game winner for the Mustangs on Luciano Lombardi (Scarborough), who stopped only one during penalty kicks. Both the Mustangs and the Varsity Blues will represent the OUA at the Canadian Interuniversity Sport (CIS) men’s soccer championship next weekend in Montreal, as both OUA finalists qualify for the competition. Following the championship game, the OUA Final Four All-Tournament Team was announced and included: Martin Painter S Western Adam Legg D Western Matthew Pittman D Western Gentjan Dervishi M Western Haidar Al-Shaibani G Western Faiz Karim D Toronto Kern Juman F Toronto Sean Myers F Toronto Mark Bennett S Brock Marco Peters D Brock Thang Nguyen M Carleton Drew Dailey D Carleton Earlier in the day, the Brock Badgers won bronze by knocking off the Carleton Ravens 2-0. Western student-athletes, known for their traditional purple and white, were sporting gold this weekend as the women’s soccer team won OUA gold in Kingston, the women’s rugby team collected CIS gold in Halifax, both earlier today while the men’s rugby team rounded out the OUA soccer and rugby sweep yesterday while winning OUA gold in London.