Muskie boys settle for silver

So far and yet so close.
The Muskie boys’ soccer team made the nearly 500-mile trek to Wawa (near Sault Ste. Marie) by school bus Friday and then came up just short of qualifying for the OFSAA tournament in North Bay later this week.
The black-and-gold opened play in the three-team round-robin tournament against their hosts Saturday morning and controlled play from the outset.
Matt Basaraba opened the scoring 35 minutes in with a perfect direct kick from just outside the Wawa 18-yard line.
With a “bend it like Beckham” flair, Basaraba fired a high hard shot from the far right that hit the mesh in the top left-hand corner.
That 1-0 score held up until 12 minutes into the second half when Muskie striker Craig McTavish, who had subbed in for Chris Plett, was fouled just outside the Wawa 18.
That gave Basaraba another chance to put the ball on net, and this time he fired a low drive into a sea of legs that McTavish redirected for a 2-0 lead.
That was all the offence either team could muster as Wawa, who had advanced to NWOSSAA with a double-overtime win over Marathon, had very few chances to score in the second half.
The Muskies, after a brief rest, then took on the St. Ignatius Falcons (Thunder Bay) at 1 p.m. in what was a must-win game to guarantee an OFSAA berth.
It was all Fort High in the first 10 minutes as the black-and-gold won all the battles for the ball and generated a few scoring chances.
But St. Ignatius found their legs, built momentum, and by the midway part of the first half were controlling play with a combination of speed and finesse that had the Muskies scrambling to keep up.
The Falcons grabbed a 1-0 lead at the 20-minute mark, as a throw-in deep to the Muskie six-yard box was batted around before the Falcons collected the loose ball and drove it past Fort High keeper Kurtis Carlson.
Just 12 minutes later, the Falcons went up 2-0 on a beautiful cross from the left side. They added a third tally in the second half to round out the scoring.
St. Ignatius later beat Wawa to capture NWOSSAA gold and advance to the all-Ontarios as the top seed.