Unbeaten Fanshawe Falcons one win away from berth in CCAAs

Ten matches in the regular season. Two more in the playoffs. Zero losses.

The Fanshawe Falcons men’s soccer team takes on George Brown in an OCAA semi-final on Thursday, Oct. 29.

The Falcons have been on a wild run from the start of the season, and they now sit one win away from a spot at the CCAA national championship.

The top two teams from the OCAA head to Edmonton for nationals from Nov. 11 to 14.

Before you go checking the mid-November forecast in Alberta, know that the championship will be played indoors, at the climate-controlled Edmonton Soccer Dome.

But Fanshawe needs one more win to get there.

“We had a great regular season,” says Falcons head coach Rob Pereira, who played at Fanshawe from 2001 to 2005. “But that doesn’t help us here in the knockout round. Our focus right now is making sure that we’re ready to play.”

The Falcons have the OCAA Player of the Year in Deseron MacLean, along with a smattering of all-stars throughout the roster: Camilo Venegas Alfaro, Carlos Cabral, Jack Serratore, Mateo Marek and Darius Darling.

The talent was there at the start of the year, but a season like this one was tough to predict.

“I knew we were going to be really competitive,” Pereira says. “I knew we would have an opportunity, as long as the guys put team first, to be successful. The goal was to obviously win, and we just took it step by step.”

MacLean has been an unbelievable story for the Falcons.

Only one player gets named the best in the league, and doing it while playing a new position adds a whole new wrinkle.

MacLean moved from right back to central striker. Pereira admits the switch was simply something the coaching staff decided to try.

“He’s got elite speed, like elite,” Pereira says with a smile. “Obviously that’s a factor. He’s always been very talented in terms of his technique on the ball, his dribbling ability. It was more about getting to the point where he’s executing in front of goal, and he’s taken some massive steps in that area. So it just ended up working out, and it’s been a really good fit. It fits our tactics and strategies.”

Now those tactics and strategies go head to head with the Huskies.

George Brown went 6-3-1 to finish second in the OCAA East Division behind 10-0 Algonquin. The Huskies beat Niagara 2-0 in a quarter-final on Oct. 24.

Algonquin and Humber meet in the other semi-final.

Kickoff for Fanshawe vs. George Brown is 2:30 p.m. at City Wide Sports Park in London.