By: Lachlan SHIRLEY                                                                                                          

ROUND 13 of the Geelong Region Men’s Division 1 will kick off tonight (Friday night) when Surfside Waves host Lara United under lights at Shell Road Reserve in Ocean Grove.

PHOTO: A file photo of a Lara United v Surfside game from last season. The two teams will clash in the Round 13 opener tonight (Photo: Bec Horrocks).

Surfside and Lara are both coming off the back of respective victories and the Waves will be going into the contest with a lot of confidence after defeating the previously undefeated top of the table Geelong Rangers.

United, meanwhile, came away with a strong victory last week against bottom side Breakwater 6-1 at Lara Recreation Reserve.

Surfside has a better record so far this season compared to Lara and are 11 points ahead of the Navy Blues on the table.

Also on Friday night, over at Barwon Heads, 9^th placed Barwon Heads will host the 7^th placed Deakin Ducks at Village Park

Both teams find themselves in the lower half of the table going into Round 13. Deakin looks to be the favourites heading into tonight’s showdown as they have won three more games than Barwon Heads.

On Sunday afternoon, 8^th placed Drysdale will take on 3^rd placed Barwon in a must win encounter at the Drysdale Sporting Precinct.

Last week, Barwon came away with all three points in its clash with Barwon Heads while Drysdale was defeated 2-1 by Corio.

Drysdale will need to put in a good performance this round as they take on a side which is currently in the top three of the league table. Nothing short of a win will do for the home side if it wants to entertain thoughts of participating in this year’s Finals’ Series.

Over at the White Eagle House in Breakwater, cellar dwellers Breakwater Eagles are set to host 5^th placed Corio.

Last round Corio emerged victorious after they defeated Drysdale, while Breakwater will need to come up with a better performance this week if they are to get anything out of this round after they were comprehensively defeated 6-1 by Lara.

Corio, which earnt promotion into the elite competition after taking out the Division 2 title last year, has done incredibly well and is situated just outside the top four. The Eagles cannot afford to drop any points against their namesakes on Sunday.

To wrap up Round 13, competition frontrunners Geelong Rangers will visit third placed Surf Coast at Banyul Warri Reserve in Torquay.

Rangers will hope to get back to winning ways this week after being narrowly defeated by Surfside last round.

It will nonetheless be a tough game for Surf Coast with Rangers on the rebound. However, with Surfside showing that Rangers are not invincible, the Coasters will be keen to extend Rangers’ losing streak to two games.

Lachlan Shirley is a young SEDA student, currently doing work experience with FFV Geelong. He will be compiling regular weekly reports on the Geelong Region Men’s and Women’s Division 1 competitions.