Whew! Redmen take title

DANIEL McCABE | Peter Bryant knows how to pick his moments. Well regarded for his defensive contributions to the McGill Redmen soccer team, Bryant had never scored a regular season goal in four years of play. Earlier this month, he changed all that with a goal that will be remembered for years to come. The Redmen were in Halifax for the Canadian university soccer championships. After a scoreless tie against the heavily favoured University of British Columbia Thunderbirds in the championship game, McGill and UBC faced off in a penalty shootout. The teams traded goals, with UBC holding a one-goal advantage throughout most of the shootout. McGill goalie Jason Forsyth made a pair of dramatic diving saves to give his teammates the chance to win. Marc Mounicot, a veteran all-star in his last appearance for the Redmen, fired a goal to tie the game. With the national championship on the line and his parents in the stands, Bryant rifled a blast past the UBC goaltender. That the Redmen were in the finals at all is a story in itself. While the team had been one of Canada's best university soccer clubs for many years, several key players had recently left and the Redmen struggled during the preseason. A rebuilding year, predicted the pundits. The turning point was a lacklustre loss to Concordia early in the season, says Redmen coach Pat Raimondo. "We just completely stunk." The coach could deal with hard-fought defeats, but sloppy, complacent play was another matter entirely. Practices suddenly became more grueling. "I ran them as hard as I could." Raimondo met with each player individually to talk about how they could help turn the season around. "The boys started taking the bull by the horns after that," says Raimondo. The team rebounded, won the Quebec championship and entered the national championship tournament ranked sixth. Raimondo describes the tournament as "a real on-the-edge-of-your-seat experience." The UBC Thunderbirds, considered practically unbeatable, had won the national title five times in the last eight years and the club was bolstered by the presence of five Canadian Olympic team players in the lineup. To make matters worse, the Redmen lost one of their top players, all-star defender Marc Labrom, in the first five minutes of the game when he was redcarded for an infraction. "At that point, the team could have just thrown in the towel and been happy with being silver medalists. But they just weren't going to give up," says a proud Raimondo. The McGill Martlets soccer team also won the Quebec title and made the Canadian finals. The Martlets didn't win in the national tournament, but they came away with an impressive consolation prize  McGill forward Odile Desbois won the Chantal Navert Memorial Award as Canada's top female university soccer player.