{"id":23712,"date":"2019-05-09T16:21:57","date_gmt":"2019-05-09T20:21:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=23712"},"modified":"2019-05-16T17:27:12","modified_gmt":"2019-05-16T21:27:12","slug":"aurora-fc-off-to-hot-start-in-league1-ontario-season-opener","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/aurora-fc-off-to-hot-start-in-league1-ontario-season-opener\/","title":{"rendered":"Aurora FC off to hot start in League1 Ontario season opener"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Jake Courtepatte<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just one week into what team staff are\ncalling a \u201crebuilding process\u201d, the Aurora FC men have already gathered three\npoints in the 2019 League1 Ontario season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The yellow and black took to the pitch\noff Ottawa\u2019s OSU Force for game one of the semi-professional soccer league\u2019s\nseason on Saturday, where Aurora FC walked off with a 4 \u2013 1 victory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was just five minutes into the game\nwhen OSU Force opened the scoring, pressing the away squad over the opening\nminutes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet Aurora posted a pair of their own\nbefore the half, one off the foot of Nuno Carvalho and another from Niklaus\nBauer in stoppage time, to take the 2 \u2013 1 lead at the whistle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Youssef Zaghloul and Max Ferrari each\nfound the back of the net for the Aurora squad in the second half to secure all\nthree available points.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Aurora head coach Michael Aquino was\npleased with the results, especially given his team\u2019s inexperience at the high\nlevel of play.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“First off, it’s a team that myself\nand coach Alex Sabatini have taken over as a duo and we are leading a\nrebuilding process,\u201d said Aquino. \u201cI think we’ve only brought three to five\nplayers from last year’s team, many of which are younger and will play U21 with\nsome important League1 minutes as well.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not all new faces are new to the league;\nhowever, Filipe Vilela was a staple with the Oakville squad, winning a Golden\nBoot in 2015.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019re looking to him for that veteran\nleadership and hopefully to put some goals in the back of the net for us. He’s\na key player coming in.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Aquino added that veteran League1 player\nMichael Fayehun, previously of Unionville and winner of a national title with\nHumber College last year, brings \u201cexperience to the centre-back spot.\u201d Both\nVilela and Fayehun have been named captains for the 2019 season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As for the familiar faces, Aurora will\nrely on those like Ferrari and Parm Singh, who each played top minutes for the\nsquad in the 2018 season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“(Ferrari)<\/strong> is a 2000-born player that\nwas with Aurora last year and I believe he scored six or seven goals,\u201d said\nAquino. \u201cVery good in and out of possession and has an excellent mentality. Max\nwill also be attending Humber College next year so we’re excited to have\nhim.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Aquino also said he sees \u201cgreat potential\u201d\nin Singh, who played top three minutes last year despite only being in grade\neleven.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A challenge lies ahead for the Aurora\nmen, who next face the perennial powerhouse Woodbridge Strikers, scheduled for\nSunday as Aurora\u2019s home opener. Kickoff is set for 6 p.m. at Stewart Burnett\nPark.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As for the other half of the program,\nthe Aurora FC women found themselves returning from Ottawa empty handed, after\nfalling 2 \u2013 1 in a close match with the OSU Force.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Veteran goalkeeper Meaghan Phillips was\nable to keep the home side off the board for the first seventeen minutes before\nshe was beaten, and holding onto a 1 \u2013 0 deficit into the late stages of the\nsecond half.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Courtney Chocol tied it up for Aurora in\nthe 70th minute on a penalty kick, though OSU Force earned the three points\nwith an 81st minute strike.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite the loss, head coach Gianni\nCimini sees a number of standouts who can make this season a success, like\nveterans Markela Bejleri, Phillips, as well as captain Laura Morelli, who joins\nthe team from the University of Guelph.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Really, there are so many good\npieces in this group to highlight and some excellent chemistry in there as\nwell,\u201d said Cimini.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“You can’t say there is one piece\nthat stands out, but we have a lot of young talent that is eager to prove\nthemselves. This could be the year that they prove it.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Next up for the Aurora women is a\nmeeting with DeRo United FC in Toronto on Sunday, before hosting their first\nhome game at Stewart Burnett against Hamilton United on May 18.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Just one week into what team staff are calling a \u201crebuilding process\u201d, the Aurora FC men have already gathered three points in the 2019 League1 Ontario season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23712","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-sports","category-sports"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23712","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23712"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23712\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}