VICTORIA, B.C. – The University of Victoria Vikes men's soccer team enters the Canada West quarter-finals on home field, Oct. 30, at Centennial Stadium against the Prairie Division's No. 3-ranked Mount Royal Cougars. The Vikes are riding the momentum of an eight-goal weekend, Oct. 23-24, in which they took maximum points from the Fraser Valley and Trinity Western.
 
The Vikes got their much-needed clean sweep to secure hosting rights to the first round of the playoffs after beating the Cascades and Spartans 3-0 and 5-1, respectively. The wins improved the Vikes' regular season record to 6-3-3 and good for the No. 2 spot in the Pacific Division, behind UBC.
 
A 5-2 loss a week earlier, Oct. 18, to the Alberta Golden Bears in the last game of the season meant a waiting game for the Cougars as to who they faced from the pacific. Cody Cook leads the Cougars into their first Canada West play-off appearance totalling five goals and eight assists in the regular season.
 
"The weather over the mountains can be unpredictable," said Vikes head coach Bruce Wilson, pleased to have west coast weather for the important match up rather than the potential of Alberta snow. "We like to play on our own grass and the goal this season was to host a play-off game, and we earned that honour.  We treated last weekend's games like playoff games, and the fact that our players get to stay at home and sleep in their own beds is a great benefit."
 
The Cougars are a relatively unknown team to the Vikes, having only played each other just once before on Sept. 15, 2013, which resulted in a 3-1 win for the Vikes. 
 
"Mount Royal have done well for themselves this season and we know it's going to be a difficult game," said Wilson of his 7-4-1 opponents. "They are a team that likes to drop off when they don't have the ball, so we need to be able to catch them on the counter-attack."
 
The veterans of the Vikes are fifth years Cam Hundal, Dominic Colantonio and Craig Gorman and they have been no strangers to the post-season during their tenure in Victoria. They have seen their season right to the end product, winning the 2011 CIS Championships on home field, while Hundal, in his rookie season, was named the Championship MVP. Following his Oct. 23-24 performance, Hundal was awarded Canada West's Second Star of the Week honours after a three goal and two assist weekend performance.
 
"It's no question that we will be relying on our veteran leadership," said Wilson of his talented seniors. "They will be called upon to lead the team and that begins in training this week. We will prepare for this game like any other. We are very deep in terms of position and age with guys like first year Isaac Koch in the starting eleven for us. We will have a fully healthy squad to choose from as well, which never hurts.
 
The Canada West quarter-final between the Vikes and Cougars kicks off at 7:15 p.m. at Centennial Stadium in Victoria. For ticket information visit govikesgo.com/tickets or watch the live stream by pay-per-view at canadawest.tv.