FC Vorkuta jumped into a six point lead in the First Division standings with a 4-1 victory over Hamilton City, while three goals by forward Aleksandar Bozovic led Waterloo to a 4-3 decision over Real Mississauga, two games in the Canadian Soccer League Saturday.
It was Hamilton City that took the lead after just three minutes at the Ontario Soccer Centre when Haris Osmanagic was put through with only Vorkuta goalkeeper Anatolii Staruskchenko to beat, which he did before placing the ball into the empty net. Vorkuta pressed for an early equalizer, but had few opportunities while up against a strong visitors’ defence, to allow just one near miss when Vorkuta’s prolific Mykola Temniuk connected to a cross by Vadym Gostiev to head just wide. It was 1-0 for Hamilton at the break.
Temniuk equalized for Vorkuta at 50 minutes, collecting the ball inside the box to catch the corner of the net, a 1-1 score. It was Temniuk’s ninth of the season.
Bohdan Borovskyi put Vorkuta into a 2-1 lead at 61 minutes, midfielder Serhii Ursulenko took a pass from Borovskyi to increase the lead to 3-1 at 67 minutes after entering as a substitute, and at 90 minutes Sergii Ivliev and Ihor Melnyk combined for Melnyk to find the corner of the net for a 4-1 score at the final whistle.
Vorkuta lead the First Division with a 6-0-0 WLT record for 18 points, while Hamilton City are in seventh position with a 1-3-1 record for 4 points.
Bozovic opened the scoring at eight minutes for Waterloo at Huron Park and defender Vladimir Zelenbaba made it 2-0 two minutes later.
Real Mississauga player-coach Krum Bibishkov reduced the lead to 2-1 for the visitors at 11 minutes and Real Mississauga tied the score 2-2 at the 20th minute mark, a goal by Mohamed Elsabahy.
Bozovic put Waterloo into a 3-2 lead with a goal at 36 minutes and the striker completed his hat-trick with a goal at 60 minutes, 4-2 for Waterloo.
Elsabahy reduced the score with a goal for Real Mississauga at 70 minutes, a 4-3 result in favour of Waterloo at the final whistle.
Waterloo are in a 3-way tie for second position in the table with a 4-3-0 record for 12 points, while Real Mississauga has a 1-4-0 record for three points in ninth position in the standings.
There is one game remaining in the CSL holiday weekend schedule with FC Ukraine United visiting Scarborough SC in Birchmount Stadium on Sunday, that’s an 8 pm kickoff.