Jackson Cowx wanted to exchange a quick word of encouragement with his teammate, Anthony Vega, and hand off the ball to the midfielder before he took his penalty kick in the quarter-finals; a custom picked up by Cowx from his time with Total Soccer Football Club (TSS FC).
The ref told him to go away, and walked the ball to Vega themself.
Cowx had stopped the second shooter for the Dinos, putting UFV in position to advance to the semi-finals, scoring on all four of their shots so far.
“If we score, we win?” he asked the referee behind the net, which the ref affirmed.
The rest is history.
Vega scored, unaware that he had clinched UFV a semi-final berth, only realizing after being mobbed by his teammates and Cowx, who might have been the first person in Thunderbird Stadium to know the result.
“I didn’t know it was the winning goal … I turned around and everyone started celebrating! It was the best feeling … I’ll definitely never forget that,” Vega said.
If Cowx had his way, and had handed the ball off to Vega himself, that sequence might have played out differently, but the spontaneity makes it special. UFV’s fifth-year keeper called it the highlight of his career, stating that the team’s celebration is a core memory of his time with the Cascades.
After battling injuries throughout his career, everything built up to this moment for Vega — one that he’s been dreaming of his entire life.
“There’s no better feeling for anyone [than] to score a goal — but for me, I don’t care if I score it. I’d rather the team win. It just happened to be that I scored the last one, so I’ll take that,” said Vega of breaking through with a timely goal.
He hadn’t scored a goal all season before breaking through with his penalty marker. Cowx affirmed that Vega’s impact on the team was felt when it needed to be.
“As we moved along, I [got] more comfortable with [Vega]; I could see his leadership,” said Cowx of his co-captain. “I was like, okay, this is someone that I should follow. [I] take pieces from him and pieces from all the other captains that I’ve had.”
It would be fair to wonder after getting shelled 5-0 by these same Dinos in September, if the Cascades were anxious heading into their quarter-final rematch and facing the high-power Calgary offence.
After being beaten five times in the first matchup, Cowx used the knowledge of what didn’t work previously, and with the added benefit of having studied their tendencies once already. How they take their kicks, how they receive their passes, when the kick will happen. Having a chance to face a team that he had already studied gave Cowx the opportunity to adapt his instincts, and bail out his team.
After already making a penalty-save earlier in the second half, Cowx was a mountain in net for the Cascades, keeping the score 0-0 through regulation time.
“We trained the day before on penalties, and I was fairly confident in my ability to guess the right way, because it’s 50-50, left [or] right,” said Cowx on his judgement call to make the stop.
Vega saw Cowx grow as a player and as a person over their time together as teammates. He highlighted that the past two years in particular, Cowx has found his identity, outside of being a great player. He calls the change from his first to fifth year day and night.
“What impressed me [about Jackson] is how he says he’s going to do something that game, and he does it,” said Vega. “‘Jackson, you gonna make another goal line save?’ — ‘Yep, of course.’ And then he goes and clears the goal line. For many people, you can talk the talk and say, ‘oh, I’m going to do this … I’m gonna score’… but it’s someone like Jackson that can do it … I admire that.”
As both players conclude their time as Cascades and move into their next endeavours The Cascade wishes them continued success, for Vega as a coach at Vega Training, and for Cowx wherever a ball needs to be stopped.
