For the fifth time in eight seasons, Mission Cleaners are the Kelowna Men’s Soccer League Div. 1 champs.
In the championship final Sunday at the Mission sports fields, the Cleaners defeated the Modern Furniture Pikeys 3-0.
The first real chance fell to Mission Cleaners as a ball was played to Scott Mazurkewich at the top of the Pikey’s penalty area, but his thunderous strike smashed against the cross bar and bounced out.
Mission Cleaners could feel the tempo rising and after a couple half-chances, finally found the back of the net after a beautiful ball was played across the face of the goal where Sean Murphy smashed in his shot from eight yards past a helpless Pikeys goalkeeper. MC led 1-0 at the half.
The start of the second half saw Pikeys come out looking to have some vigor and created a couple of point-blank chances that called Mission Cleaners keeper Spencer Brown to task, with two large saves.
With that frustration of not scoring or creating many other chances starting to show, Mission Cleaners began to take the game over. The persistence paid off after a good cross was swung into the box and Mazurkewich was able to break free of his defender and place a header between the Pikey’s keepers arms to make it 2-0 with 25 minutes remaining.
From there, the Pikeys tired legs started to show and Mission Cleaners began to pour on the pressure. One sequence saw them hit two posts and one cross bar before Pikeys were able to frantically the ball out of danger.
With about 15 minutes remaining, the game was sealed after a nice lay off was played by Alex Thompson to Sean Murphy to finish off his second of the game and seal the win.
The Mission Cleaners will go for the season double this weekend when they battle Vernon’s Turn Key FC in the Royal Cup final. Kick off this Sunday at Mission 14 is 1 p.m.