The Vanier Vikings weren’t exactly worried about the final score in their opening game to the Moose Jaw High School Boys Soccer League’s 2017 season on Wednesday.

Vanier came out on the losing end, falling 5-1 to the Weyburn Eagles at the Canada Games Field, but the Vikings were happy with how the team performed over the course of the game.

“The first game of the season, we were happy to shape things out a little bit, try to figure out where were going to play people for the year,” said Vanier head coach Jaysen Tomashewski. “Today wasn’t really about the win, today was about trying to figure out where all these rookies are going to play, so all together, pretty good.”

Weyburn scored twice in the first half to take a 2-1 lead with Vanier showing some good compete in the opening 45-minutes.  The Eagles took over in the second half and struck for three goals to cruise to the season opening.

Nathan Anderson led the way for Weyburn with two goals in the win, while Matthew Forcier, Cody Hagel and Jake Wagner also found the back of the net in the win.

“Overall it was a really good game for us, our passing was phenomenal and we ended up putting more in the net than them, so that’s all that matters,” said Forcier after the win.

The Eagles were able to outlast the Vikings over the course of the game with some good speed and passing, which helped them generate a number of quality chances.  Wagner said the team needs to work on finishing on more of those chances.

“We’ve got to work on our shooting because we missed quite a few more than we scored,” he said. “Our crosses are doing good, but we’ve got to work more on our combo plays in the corner.”

Billy McLean scored the lone goal in the loss for Vanier.

The Vikings had seven new players on the field in the game and Tomashewski said the team got a good idea of what it’s going to take to play this season.

“We’ve got four guys from last year that are starting to learn the game, we’ve still got a long way to go, but today was a good feel,” said Tomashewski.

“In the second quarter, back end of the first half, we were finally controlling the ball, we were moving the ball well, our off ball movement was much better then, but once we got into the second half, the guys started to loose their legs a little bit.”

The game served as a good starting point for both teams heading into the rest of the season.

Vanier will be back on the field on Monday to take on the Central Cyclones at 4:30 p.m. at the Canada Games Field.