The Cochrane Cobras varsity girls’ soccer team has added another title to its impressive season.
Following a convincing 5-0 win over the Springbank Phoenix, Oct. 14 in Airdrie, to claim first place in the Rocky View Sports Association girls’ soccer league, the Cobras won the South Central Zone championship with a 2-1 win over Okotoks’ Foothills Composite in Drumheller on Oct. 16.
“It goes down in history as the most successful (Cochrane) girls soccer season ever (10W -0L) and the first time a Cobra soccer team has ever won Zones,” said Cobras’ head coach Carolyn McLeod.
“We’ve gone to zones twice before and our best result was silver last year to Foothills Comp. Our girls just seemed so strong. They’re really dedicated to this sport.”
Danika Cook and Alyssa Wheeler scored the two Cobra goals in the gold medal game against Foothills – a team they lost to in the Zone final last year, but beat 5-4 in a shootout in its opening Zones’ game.
Cochrane then earned its spot in the final by beating Bert Church 6-0 in the semi-final. The team has now won the RVSA title two years in a row and three of the past four.
Katelyn Dimopoulos scored three times in the clinching victory over Springbank, while Wheeler and Erin Greeves each had one goal.
“She’s an unbelievable talent,” McLeod said of Dimopoulos. “She’s got so many different skills in all areas: goal-scoring, speed, turning on the ball, control, patience. You could name any quality that a good athlete would have and she’s has it.”
Dimopoulos scored her first of the game, and eventual game-winner, on a 20-yard strike off her left foot in the 18th minute. Wheeler made it 2-0 Cobras 10 minutes later when she found the back of the net to complete a nice 20-yard run.
The Cobras extended its lead to 4-0 at the half after Dimopoulos scored twice more – one on an open net following a great run by Amy Kraemer in the 40th minute and the other a blasting shot past the Phoenix keeper two minutes later.
Greeves, who was the Cobras’ keeper in the first half, completed the scoring in the first minute of the second half.
With the big lead early on, McLeod was able to rest some of her top players for the majority of the second half to preserve their energy for the weekend tournament.
“We always try to play all of our players and don’t to like to have anyone sitting for too long. Obviously, there are some players that play more than others, but we try and rotate as best we can. And we were thinking of resting some of our girls for (zones). It was nice to have that option,” she said.
“We’ve never had a divisional final like this and weren’t expecting this type of result. We were hoping to come out with a win, so having a 5-0 victory does pump the girls up.”
Cochrane beat Bert Church with a similar 5-0 score on Oct. 12 to advance to the RVSA final. George McDougall beat Bert Church 4-3 in penalties to claim bronze in the league.
