Forge end regular season with 1-1 draw at Pacific
Tristan Borges put Forge ahead early on Vancouver Island, but Ronan Kratt's 72nd-minute strike off the crossbar settled the final day.
· by Colin Radek · match report · playoffs · pacific fc · tristan borges
Forge finished the regular season with a 1-1 draw at Pacific FC, and as it turned out, the CPL Shield was already out of reach regardless. Cavalry were beating Vancouver FC 1-0 in Calgary at the same time, meaning only a Forge win by a significant number of goals would have been enough to top the table. A Cavalry draw combined with a Forge win would have sent the Shield to Hamilton, but Cavalry led early and protected it through the second half.
Bobby Smyrniotis pointed to the midweek fixture when explaining the flat finish. "Coming off of Wednesday, that was a very monumental game for us and a historic game," the Forge head coach said, adding that the adrenaline and energy spent always makes the next match a difficult one.
Forge took the lead in the 12th minute with their first chance of the game. Levonte Johnson cut the ball back for Tristan Borges, and the captain curled a first-time right-footed shot towards the back post and over Eleias Himaras into the top corner. Dimitry Bertaud had already denied Yann Toualy three minutes earlier, and he stopped Kratt again on 16 minutes, while a Forge defender cleared Diego Konincks' header off the line just before the break.
Pacific kept coming after half-time, with Toualy skying one chance and slicing an acrobatic effort wide, before Kratt finally levelled in the 72nd minute. He beat a defender and struck a shot that hit the crossbar and rolled over the line. Forge pushed to restore the lead, Antoine Batisse heading just wide in the 84th minute and Ben Paton slicing a Marko Jevremovic cutback past the far post, before Marley Edwards missed a breakaway chance on the final play of the match.
Pacific finished eighth on 15 points, but Terry Dunfield, who took over partway through the season, was encouraged. "We were really proud of that performance," he said, praising his players for an entertaining brand of football. It was also the first time in eight head-to-head meetings that Pacific had avoided defeat against Forge.
Attention now turns to the playoffs. Forge meet Atlético Ottawa in the semi-finals, with the first leg at TD Place on Sunday, November 1 (2 p.m. ET) and the return at Hamilton Stadium on Sunday, November 8 (1 p.m. ET).