FOOTHILLS COUNTY — Cavalry’s search for its first league win will have to wait a week.
Despite a huge edge in shots, passes, possession and final entries, Cavalry FC (0-2-1) couldn’t close the deal in a 0-0 draw with Pacific FC in its Canadian Premier League home opener Sunday afternoon at Spruce Meadows’ ATCO Field.
“It’s two points dropped in my opinion,” said Cavalry FC head coach and GM Tommy Wheeldon Jr. “The manner in which we played the first half, coming in at nil-nil, it’s disappointing, but we stuck to the tactics the first 10, 15 minutes we were at them again.
“Maybe we ran out of steam, maybe the changes coming in weren’t what we needed at that time, but we’ve played three games in a week so you have to make them.”
The first half saw the Cavs enjoy a lot of opportunities down the right flank with Ali Musse, Fraser Aird and Sergio Camargo combining for a number of scoring chances.
In the second half, the team came close on a shot from distance from substitute Lleyton Brooks and looked to have grabbed a late winner through Lucas Dias only to have it called back for offside.
All told, the hosts had 20 shot attempts, 164 passes in the final third and seven possessions won in the final third in the stalemate.
“First and foremost, we’re disappointed not to win today,” said Cavs goalkeeper Marco Carducci, who picked up his first clean sheet of the season. “Given the chances we created, the way we played for almost every part of the game and as it was our league home opener we wanted to put on a show for our fans.
“We’re disappointed we couldn’t do that, but at the end of the day we’re going to continue to grow here and this is a long season.”
Pacific FC entered the contest with a perfect 2-0 start while not conceding a goal with home victories over Valour and Halifax and extended the streak of clean sheets to three.
The Cavs started the season with a road loss to Forge and a 1-1 draw against Atlético Ottawa and earned a 1-0 win in cup play over Vancouver FC on Tuesday.
It’s reminiscent of last year’s tough start to the campaign with a series of draws before the Cavs picked up steam and ran away with the regular season title by a 13-point margin.
“We’ve seen what happened last year,” the coach added. “I think we had double the amount of final third, box entries as them and we have to take our chances. We can’t leave it to Marco to make a late save when we’re throwing everything, but the kitchen sink at them.
“We’ve got to be more ruthless. I told them, the boys accept that.”
Cavalry FC remains undefeated in CPL home openers with three wins and two draws.
The Cavs are back home May 3 for their first league match against Vancouver FC.
The Vancouver theme continues next week when it’s back to cup action on May 7 with the MLS’ Vancouver Whitecaps visiting Spruce Meadows for the first leg of the Canadian Championship quarter-final. Kick-off is 7 p.m. at ATCO Field.
For more information, go to cavsfc.com.
Editor's Note: A previous version of this article had the wrong location for the May 3 game, which is to be held at ATCO Field. The Western Wheel apologizes for this error.
