With a golden opportunity to take a tighter hold on first place, Cavalry goes down by two goals after 12 minutes to a seventh-place club and never recovers.

Call it a big reality check.

The 2026 Canadian Premier League Shield is not in Cavalry FC’s hands yet.

The league-leading Calgary footie side still has to earn the regular-season trophy at the business end of the campaign, not with efforts like Saturday’s letdown in a 3-1 road loss to Inter Toronto FC.

The Cavs were put on the back foot early at York Lions Stadium by Inter, which came in as the seventh-place club in the eight-team circuit.

Toronto struck just six minutes in, as Sebastian Gonzáles brought down a pass from Ariel Almagro in the box and curled a shot into the top right corner past Cavalry goalkeeper Nathan Ingham.

The hosts doubled the lead six minutes later when Cavalry defenders failed to clear the ball and Steffen Yeates converted the opportunity.

The Cavs pressed but Inter held firm, then capitalized on a counter-attack. Ingham made big saves on Almagro and Gonzáles, but Yeates was able to slot home a loose ball in the 69th minute.

The visitors pulled one back late as Eryk Kobza got on the end of a corner kick in the 83rd minute.

“We beat ourselves today,” Cavalry gaffer Tommy Wheeldon Jr. was quoted as saying on the CPL’s website. “That’s pretty obvious, because we’re fighting for everything near the end, but you give any team in this league two goals, it’s a tough ask to come back.

“We did our best, we tried, we took risks knowing that one goal could swing it … They score on the counter, that’s the risk you play. But these are great lessons. The table doesn’t change, nor does the mission. We know what we need to do in the next three games.”

Those next three games will close out the regular season after the Cavs (16-5-4) missed an opportunity to put more distance between themselves and second-place Forge FC (14-4-6).

Cavalry did catch a break later Saturday when its Hamilton rival was held 3-3 by HFX Wanderers FC in Halifax.

The results leave the Cavs with a five-point lead and Forge holding a game in hand. But Cavalry has also now lost two straight for the first time this season after falling 3-2 to Atlético Ottawa on Wednesday.

Cavalry next faces the Wanderers in Halifax on Oct. 12 for a Thanksgiving Day matchup (2 p.m. MT, OneSoccer).

Meanwhile, Toronto (7-12-6) now sits sixth on the table, six points behind Vancouver FC for the fourth and final playoff spot.