The George McDougall Mustangs girls’ soccer team will play for the Rocky View Sports Association high school championship.
Mustang Alix Jacob scored the game-winning goal 45 seconds into extra time, as McDougall defeated the Springbank Phoenix 2-1 in semifinal action at Airdrie’s Monklands Park, Oct. 4.
Ayla Weemaels had the other goal for George Mac, which will now play the Cochrane Cobras for the gold medal on Oct. 6 (after the Airdrie City View went to press). The Cobras defeated the Bow Valley Bobcats 4-0 in the other semifinal.
“It was a pretty intense and emotional game the whole way along,” said Mustangs’ head coach Stephanie Fitzgerald. “Thankfully, it was a short overtime period. It’s not totally standard to do the golden goal, but I think, for the sake of time, that’s what we do.”
Springbank opened the scoring in the 29th minute, when Emily Kardash sent a great through ball up to Alli Baker, putting her in a partial breakaway, who then put the ball over the head of Mustang keeper Shelby Long.
George Mac would answer back 10 minutes in the second half, when Weemaels had a lucky bounce land on her foot before flicking it past the Phoenix keeper. Fitzgerald said she knew her girls would show resiliency.
“When we played Springbank the last time, they scored first as well,” she said. “So I said ‘it’s the same thing as last time, let’s do it.’ We changed formation a little bit to maybe not play as defensive (in the second half). The girls wanted to win and wanted to score. They really worked together. I was so impressed by their play.”
After 80 minutes the score remained 1-1, setting up the golden goal-format of extra time. George Mac earned a free kick 30 seconds in and Jacob was able to bounce the ball in and send the Mustangs into jubilation – and the gold medal game.
The team will face a tough Cochrane opponent – one it lost to 6-0 on Sept. 13 in the season opener.
“I think we’re very much a different team than when we played them. We’re just going to keep playing the kind of soccer we did against Springbank and hopefully it works against Cochrane. I hope we surprise them a bit,” Fitzgerald said.
“It’s been a long time since George Mac has even been a contender for gold. For a lot of the girls, although we want to win gold, we’re super pumped just to be in the gold medal game. It really is an accomplishment for them to get here.”
