OSHAWA, Ont. - After breaking into the CCAA national rankings earlier this week, the No. 15 Durham College men's soccer team were handed their first loss of the season on Saturday, falling 3-0 at home against fellow national contender No. 6 Algonquin Thunder. 

Early in the match, last week's CCAA athlete of the week Joshua Lee (Ajax, Ont.) had the first chance of the game for DC in the eighth minute, but his effort was saved by the Thunder goalkeeper. The Lords continued their good start to the match when Ryan Airlie (Whitby, Ont.) saw his long-range strike go just inches wide of the top left corner. Fifth-year veteran Colin Reilly (Whitby, Ont.) was next to draw close from a free kick, but it was tipped over on its way to goal. 

Malek Belhaj broke the deadlock in favour of the Thunder, making it 1-0 for Algonquin in the 26th minute after he rounded Lords keeper Kevon Grant (Oshawa, Ont.) and tapped home. The score remained 1-0 into the half.

Grant rebounded well from the opening goal though, denying Algonquin when he made two saves within a minute just after the halftime break. 

Belhaj got his second of the game in the 69th minute when he did well to find space on his left foot before smashing the ball off the crossbar and into the back of the net. The third goal came 10 minutes later when Michael Iliopoulos got onto the end of his own rebound and despite Grant's effort to keep out the second shot, it just made its way in. 

Durham went down to 10 men in the 82nd minute after Kevin Thibodeau (Pickering, Ont.) was shown a red card. It then went from bad to worse for the Lords when Kahlil John-Wentworth (Ajax, Ont.) picked up a red card of his own, which meant Durham went down to nine players to end the game. Luckily, the Lords defence were able to withstand the late pressure.

The Lords will hope to pick themselves up next Friday when they travel to take on the Centennial Colts in Scarborough. Kickoff is at 8:15 p.m. with the game scheduled to be streamed on OCAA LIVE.

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