TORONTO — Toronto FC is headed to the Canadian Championship semifinals after setting a tournament-scoring record in an 8-1 win Tuesday, completing an 11-1 aggregate victory over Ligue1 Quebec champion CS Saint-Laurent.
Saint-Laurent returns home with a little history of its own after becoming the first semi-pro side to score against a Major League Soccer team in the cup competition. And while Tuesday’s score was lopsided and Saint-Laurent finished the game with 10 men, the Quebec side hit the woodwork twice, had nine corners to Toronto’s three and outshot Toronto 22-13 (11-10 in shots on target).
“We showed Montreal, Quebec, everybody in Canada that we can play soccer,” said Saint-Laurent captain Wesley Wandje. “That’s the goal we had before coming here. … So I’m proud of that.”
When not playing football, the 24-year-old Wandje studies finance at university and works for Sunwing at the Montreal airport.
Deandre Kerr had four goals as eight-time champion Toronto scored early and often.
The eight goals, one of which was a Saint-Laurent own goal, set a tournament record, erasing the mark set by Atletico Ottawa in a 7-0 drubbing of Valour FC on May 1 in preliminary-round play. It was also a Toronto club record.
“I think it showed the quality gap between the teams, of course,” said Saint-Laurent coach Nick Razzaghi. “They were very much here to play, which is a sign of big respect towards our players.”
Saint-Laurent played some attractive football at times against well-heeled MLS opposition, albeit an essentially reserve side Tuesday. But Toronto converted its chances and led 3-0 after 43 minutes with Kerr accounting for all three goals.
Things went from bad to worse in the 45th minute when Saint-Laurent’s veteran Tunisian defender Oussama Boughanmi was shown a straight red card when he caught Alonso Coello with a boot to the face. It was unintentional but reckless.
Cassius Mailula, Derrick Etienne Jr. and Prince Owusu also scored for Toronto, which marked its second hat trick in as many games. Italian Federico Bernardeschi had three in Saturday’s 5-1 league win over CF Montreal.
Kerr, who backs up Owusu in MLS play, now has five goals in Canadian Championship play this year. The 21-year-old from Toronto has eight goals in 58 career MLS games.
He becomes the first player to score four goals in a Canadian Championship match and the first TFC player to score four goals in a game.
Toronto’s second-half goals came on a deflected shot by Mailula in the 50th minute, from…