VICTORIA - The University of Victoria Vikes men's field hockey team fell hard to an internationally experienced West Coast Kings team on Oct. 26 at UVic's water-based pitch. The West Coast Kings dominated 6-2 despite the Vikes cracking the score board first. The visitors boasted a squad that featured 2008 Olympians and Canadian team standouts Mark Pearson and Ranjeev Deol, as well as Mexico's national team captain Francisco Aguilar. Both Pearson and Aguilar were named to the 2013 Men's Pan American Cup tournament all-star list this past August.

"Our boys played a great game today and implemented some of the thigns we have been working on in practice," said Vikes head coack Kevin Laidman. "We looked really dangerous going forward and had some great stretches of dominant possession. We just need to work on finishing because we have been creating a lot of chances."

The Vikes had the start they wanted pressuring the Kings with an aggressive press and strong team transitiion. Klenk buried a Sam Jones low draf flick in the ninth minute of play to get the Vikes up 1-0.

The West Coast Kings showed their experience with the speed of Aguilar and Pearson working together up front. They were soon rewarded when pearson blasted a back-hand shot from a sharp angle to tie the game 1-1 in the 17th minute.

The Kings continued to build their momentum, earning another penalty corner five minutes later. Aguilar scored a well-executed drag flick to Vikes keeper Toby Owen's stick side to put the visitors up 2-1 in the 22nd minute.

The young Vikes squad continued to battle, maintaining composure in their backfield and successfully executing several possession plays and outlets. Unable to capitalize though, the Kings continued to come the other way, tallying on a counter attack to go up 3-1 and earning their fourth goal on an Aguilar drag flick just before half. The Kings grabbed the 4-1 lead entering the break.

Despite the three goal defecit the Vikes came out revived in the second half. Passing and distribution improved but an experienced West Coast Kings back line shut the door at the top of the circle. David Bell, Arsh Buttar and Sam Jones anchored the Vikes defence line but were not able to handle a Deol reverse stick shot in the 40th minute that made it 5-1 for the visitors.

The Vikes who had several minutes from rookies Prabh Sahota, Aidan Pye and Trevor Feehan continued to perform admirably and were finally rewarded after good team build up freed up Connor Martin. Martin tallied in the 55th minute to cut the lead back to three and tilted the momentum for the home team. The Vikes earned three more penalty corners but were unable to finish.

The West Coast Kings came back with one more goal in the 65th minutes to silence the Vikes and take a 6-2 win. 

SCORING SUMMARY
UVIC: 1- 1 : 2
WCK: 4 - 2 : 6

SCORING LEADERS:
UVIC: Tyler Klenk (1), Connor Martin (1)