HALIFAX – Ligue1 Quebec champion CS Saint-Laurent upset Halifax Wanderers FC 5-3 in a penalty shootout Thursday to earn a quarterfinal date with Toronto FC in the Canadian Championship.
After Saint-Laurent ‘keeper Konstantinos Maniatis stopped Christian Volesky’s penalty, Mouhamadou Kane stepped up and beat Yann Fillion for the shootout win.
It marks the second straight year a semi-pro side has dispatched a pro team from the Canadian Premier League in the cup competition. TSS Rovers, based in Richmond, B.C., ousted Winnipeg’s Valour FC last season.
This year’s competition has not been so kind to the League1 B.C. team. TSS Rovers lost a 5-4 penalty shootout to Pacific FC on Wednesday night in another preliminary-round game that finished knotted at 2-2 after 90 minutes.
Ryan Telfer’s 83rd-minute goal had pulled Halifax even at 2-2 knocking the ball in off a corner.
Halifax captain Dan Nimick put the home side ahead 1-0 from the penalty spot in the 29th minute.
Kane tied it up four minutes later with his own spot kick, winning the penalty himself after Fillion was judged to have taken him down.
Loic Kwemi put the Quebec side ahead in the 65th minute with a long-range shot, off a corner, that took a deflection off a defender.
The other quarterfinals, which are all two-legged affairs, are Cavalry FC versus the defending champion Vancouver Whitecaps, Atletico Ottawa versus Pacific FC and CF Montreal versus Forge FC.
League1 Ontario’s Simcoe County Rovers, the other semi-pro side in the competition, were eliminated 5-0 by Toronto FC.
The winner of the 14-team tournament hoists the Voyageurs Cup and qualifies for the CONCACAF Champions Cup, the confederation’s elite men’s club competition.
The Canadian Championship is sponsored by Telus.
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This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 2, 2024
