PETERBOROUGH, Ont. – After a struggle against the Brock Badgers to open their preseason, the defending OCAA men's soccer champion Durham Lords bounced back with a better effort on Monday night.
When the final whistle went, Durham College walked away with a 7-1 victory over the Trent Excalibur.
Opening the scoring for the Lords, captain
Cody Kraemer (Whitby, Ont.) has now scored in back-to-back matches.
Sheldon Brown (Whitby, Ont.) tallied twice, while individual goals came from
Nigel Buckley (Pickering, Ont.),
Jeremy Bangala (Pickering, Ont.),
Colin Reilly (Whitby, Ont.) and
Sheldon Holden (Bowmanville, Ont.)
"We competed in our first match, but not to the level we want from the group," said head coach
Dave Ashfield. "We want to use this time to get better and be as prepared for conference play as possible, so to have the group respond with a better effort tonight was great to see. We still have work to do and a lineup to tweak on the pitch, but overall we feel this group will move in the right direction."
The preseason continues Wednesday in Kingston as they face the Queen's Gaels to wrap up play against three Ontario University Athletics (OUA) squads prior to the friendly Campus Cup against the cross-campus rival UOIT Ridgebacks on Tuesday, Sept. 4.
These matches lead into a rematch of the 2017 OCAA gold medal game to open the upcoming season.
Durham hosts the Algonquin Thunder in their season opener on Saturday, Sept. 8 at Vaso's Field.
Overall Record: 1-1-0
Conference Record: 0-0-0
Next match: Wednesday, Aug. 22 @ Queen's Gaels (1 p.m. – Kingston, Ont.)
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