A A

It had started off a dream night for HFX Wanderers FC.

After a nervous start to the road game, the Wanderers found themselves up 2-0 in the second leg of their third-round Canadian Championship series against the Ottawa Fury.

But the Fury fought back to tie the game 2-2 and take the aggregate goal series 5-4 Wednesday night in Ottawa.

The Wanderers had the edge over their opponents for most of the first half, creating several chances from fast breakaways caused by the disruptive physicality of central-attacking midfielder, Tomasz Skublak.

After missing a couple of chances a few minutes earlier, Skublak made no mistake when centre-back Peter Schaale hoofed a long ball toward him around in the 30th minute. Controlling the ball on his chest, Skublak deftly flicked it over the defender and volleying it hard past the Fury goalkeeper, in the ilk of Zlatan Ibrahimovich for LA Galaxy.

If the first goal was beautiful and extremely difficult to finish, the second was the opposite.

Skublak’s partner in the forward line, Luis Alberto Perea, was the beneficiary of clumsiness and poor marking by the Ottawa defence. An in-swinger from a corner was flicked on and bobbled around the six-yard box before falling at the feet of Perea and he was left with the simple task off thumping the ball into an open net.

Fronting up and taking on their United Soccer League opponents showed that the Canadian Premier League (CPL) is a serious league, Wanderers Zachary Sukunda, an Ottawa native, said after the game.

The hope and optimism radiated from the small band of Halifax fans. But it didn’t last long.

Denton Froese was part of a travelling band of Wanderers fans who flew and drove in for the game. “I want to see the spirit catch in Halifax,” he said.

But then, down the other end of the pitch, on the stroke of halftime, lazy marking on a Fury corner allowed lanky left fullback Obasi to sneak in at the near post and glance a header past the hands of Wanderers keeper Jan-Michael Williams to bring the score to 2-1.

“It rattled us,” said Stephen Hart, the Wanderers coach after the game.

Suddenly all the momentum was gone. The wind was taken out from under the Wanderers’ sails. They appeared rattled in the second half, as the Fury began to move forward. After a lucky break off a bouncing ball, Christian Francois, who had been dangerous all game, deftly lofted the ball over the keeper after finding himself alone in the box to even the score at 2-2.

The Wanderers needed another goal to send the match to extra-time. But struggling to hold onto the ball, the Wanderers and their 160 travelling fans, who made the trip from Nova Scotia, were becoming more and more frustrated, as long balls were knocked back and passes went astray.

Fatigue also likely factored in as the Wanderers had played five games in the past two weeks.

“We’ve had a massive schedule so far this July, and it’s just about managing our bodies better on and off the field,” said Sukunda.

Ultimately, there was no further change in the score, and the Wanderers were left dejected on the field as they crashed out of the Canadian championship at the quarter-final stage.

Experience also was a factor. A lot of the Halifax players have never played on a stage like this, said Hart. Learning from this game experience and striving for more consistency will be key moving forward, he said.

“You can’t coach experience, I think we’re in a situation now where they’ll say to themselves, ‘Wait a minute, we could’ve been in this,’ ” he said. “But you can’t coach that, you have to learn that from the environment. I think they learned a bigger lesson here than I could teach them.”

The Fury won the first leg of the series 3-2 on July 10 at the Wanderers Grounds in Halifax.

Ottawa advances to meet Toronto FC of Major League Soccer in the semifinal of the Canadian Championship.

The Wanderers return to Canadian Premier League action on Saturday when they travel to Toronto to take on York9 FC.

RELATED:

Wanderers face tough task against Fury in Canadian Championship series