Briana Shymanski
Rocky View Publishing
It was do-or-die for the Bert Church Chargers, and they kept their playoff hopes alive with a 2-0 win over the Chestermere Lakers, May 14.
It was the team’s first win of the season and a first half marker from John Garzon was also the team’s first goal. Hitting both milestones was a huge relief for Bert Church Assistant Coach Fraser Hunter.
“(The win) was needed,” he said. “It was ‘win or go home’ for us and we needed it to have a chance at the playoffs. We started out strong and came out big.”
Curtis Contenti also scored for the Chargers in the first, giving his team a much-needed lead.
“Being able to score is a huge confidence booster,” said Hunter. “We were playing the same way as we did the last three games. We had been playing well, but not getting the results we deserved. We finally got that.”
The defence stood tall in the second half of the game despite injuries to key players and helped keeper Rohan Bagga record his first shutout of the season.
The Chargers played its final regular season game against Bow Valley in Cochrane, May 16. (Results were not available by press time.)
Mustangs beat Cobras
The George McDougall Mustangs also helped along their playoff push with a 4-2 win over the Cochrane Cobras, May 10.
Coming off of a “disappointing” 0-0 tie against Chestermere last week, Mustangs Head Coach Brian DeGiuseppe said that he was pleased with the team’s offensive presence against the Cobras.
“It was a really good win,” he said. “It was nice to score goals. That’s been the bottom line for us (this season).”
Matt Wagner scored for the Mustangs in the first half, which ended in a 1-1 tie. Wagner would add another goal and David Derring and Max Pape would score in the second half to give the Mustangs the win. Both of Wagner’s goals were scored off of free kicks, which were a key to the team’s increased offence in the later stages of the game.
“I think in the first half we generated good attacks. We just weren’t finishing,” said DeGiuseppe. “We improved on our free kicks. In the first half, they were going nowhere. In the second half, we stuck to our game, made smart passes and capitalized on our chances for a change.”
The Mustangs are on a bye week and await the victor of Chestermere and Cochrane game, which will determine if it finishes first or second in the regular season standings.
Despite not knowing which team it will play in the RVSA semi-finals, DeGiuseppe said that he’s hoping the team can keep the momentum from Monday’s game heading forward.
“I think the main focus is building on what we did Monday night,” he said. “We need to tighten up our (defence). There were some breakdowns that happened (against Cochrane) and we gave up two goals. We changed our system a bit and that helped, so we want to build on that formation and keep working with that.”
