It was a golden first phase of competition for Cochrane’s athletes at the 2019 Western Canada Summer Games, held Aug. 9 to 18 in Swift Current, Sask.
During phase one of the games, Cochrane athletes played on the Alberta women’s soccer and basketball teams, that both dominated and came away with gold.
On the soccer pitch, Aiślin Phillips – a 16-year-old central defensive midfielder – helped Alberta to a first-place finish over Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Northwest Territories and Yukon.
“The chemistry on the team, we were able to figure out how each other played, so we could highlight each other on the field,” she said. “That was one of the turning points and the main reason why we won.”
Alberta dominated its first two games, thumping Northwest Territories and Yukon 10-0 and 16-0, respectively. The team then faced a tougher test against Saskatchewan, yet still came away with a 2-0 victory.
“Having the first two games be a bit easier for us, we had to mentally reset for the next two. Because we knew, heading into the Saskatchewan and Manitoba games, we weren’t going to keep possession the whole time and control the game like we had been in the first two games,” Phillips said.
“But it also set us up nicely, because our confidence was high going into those games.”
After recording three consecutive clean sheets, Alberta finally conceded a goal in its final match – a 1-1 draw against Manitoba. With three wins and a draw, as well as 29 goals scored and just one conceded, Alberta had solidified its position at the top of the five-team round-robin tournament.
On the basketball court, Alberta enjoyed similar dominance, winning four of its five fixtures to earn the gold medal. Sixteen-year-old Magdalene Smith was Cochrane’s sole representative on the team.
Alberta’s tournament didn’t get off to the best start Aug. 10, as the team fell 64-56 to Saskatchewan.
But that was the only time the Albertans tasted defeat, going on to record convincing victories over Yukon (103-13) and Northwest Territories (80-40), before concluding its round-robin with an 88-35 win against Manitoba.
“By the end, we were playing together as a team,” Smith said. “It can be hard, when you don’t know each other for very long, to come together. But I thought, by far, that we deserved to win that final, because we were probably the best team there.”
Having qualified for the gold-medal game Aug. 13, Alberta earned its redemption from the opening defeat to Saskatchewan with an 80-48 upset against the host. Alberta led 38-25 at halftime, and finished strong in the remaining quarters, keeping Saskatchewan to just 23 points en route to the 32-point victory.
“Losing to Saskatchewan [in the first game] really fuelled us to do better, and to beat the other teams and try to get into the final,” Smith said. “When we got there, we just wanted it so much more than Saskatchewan did, because we wanted to show we shouldn’t have lost the first game.”
Due to the number of athletes and sports at the Western Canada Summer Games, the 16 respective sports were divided into two phases, with the first phase concluding Aug. 13 and the second phase running Aug. 14 to 18 (after press time).
Four Cochrane athletes competed during the second phase, including wrestlers Autumn Shopa, Zoë Adam and Nicholas Hooper, as well as long-distance runner Amy Miller, who ran in the 1,500-metre (m) and 3,000-m races in track and field.
A full recap of phase two will appear in next week’s Rocky View Weekly and on AirdrieToday.com
