The Chestermere varsity girls soccer club won its first game of the season, defeating the Bert Church Charger’s 5-1, Sept. 22 at Monklands Soccer Park in Airdrie.
The game got off to a great start for the Airdrie club, which scored on its first play of the game.
However, excellent ball movement by the Chestermere squad stifled Bert Church’s efforts, resulting in five unanswered tallies in the remainder of the first half.
“I think it was a great game at both ends,” said Lakers head coach Adelee Penner. “These are two teams that are evenly matched, and today things came together for us.”
Bert Church head coach Theresa Cardinal said that she is happy with her team’s effort, and is seeing the squad coming together.
“They played awesome tonight, I think they are finally gelling as a team, full attendance helps too,” said Cardinal. “They have made improvements, they are covering more, they are communicating. The thing they need to improve on is their intensity, it has to stay up there.”
Both teams were winless heading into the match, which comes with only one regular season game left on the schedule before the post season starts on Sept. 29.
With such a short season, both coaches agreed the sport is very challenging.
“For us it’s rough, our school is Grade 10, 11 and 12. We have 9s that come to play, but we are bringing them from another school to play,” said Penner. “Our team is essentially a new team and a lot of the girls haven’t played soccer before. With this short season we don’t have time to develop, and set team goals and get going where we want to go.”
Cardinal agreed with the Chestermere coach, adding that starting the teams before school begins may give a hand up in the coming years.
“(It was tough) starting the team, we only had two practices before our first game,” said Cardinal. “We are looking at starting a summer camp next year, because a majority of girls will be coming back.”
The George McDougall Lady Mustangs defeated the Bow Valley girls soccer club 5-1 in Bow Valley, to bring its season record to 3W-1L Sept. 22, sitting second behind the undefeated Cochrane High School Cobras. Cochrane played Springbank on Sept. 22 in Springbank, but the final score was unavailable at press time.
