Women's soccer team stays on right track

By Michelle Jondreau

jond0001@algonquincollege.com

Despite winning against Cambrian on Oct. 4, the Algonquin women’s soccer team cannot afford to play another game with little action on their part if they want to do well at provincials.

With only four more games to go in the regular season, and six wins and one tie in the standings, perhaps Algonquin has started to feel a little too comfortable at the top. This feeling was certainly reflected in the defensive way they played.

“We didn’t play to our full potential,” said Algonquin midfielder Jennifer Groleau.

Both teams played cautiously for the first half, with a lot of back and forth action but very little shots on goal. Algonquin finally picked up the pace in the second half when they scored two goals to make the final score 2-0.

One of the team captains, midfielder Ally Pross, scored the first goal of the night 60 minutes into the game when she received a nice pass from forward Stephanie Young and expertly kicked the ball at an angle where it looked like it would hit the post.

“They’ve [Cambrian] certainly improved, considering we killed them 7-0 last time we played them,” said Pross.

For the next 16 minutes of no action after the first goal was scored, the 40 fans who had come to brave the cold dwindled down to about 30. At 76 minutes into the game, Groleau created the first bump in the game when she got a yellow card for knocking down an opposing player.

“That was a bad call,” said Groleau of the referee after the end of the game. “That girl couldn’t take a hit; after all, this is soccer not chess.”

With only four minutes to go before the end of the game, midfielder Christina Cain got a header that scored the second and final goal of the night for Algonquin.

“Cambrian has improved their game, but the referee made some shocking and unpredictable calls,” said head coach Garth Gittens.

According to Gittens, Algonquin’s game has gotten worse since the last time they played Cambrian because they are not hitting enough combination shots. For the next game, Gittens said the girls will be told they need to pass more instead of attempting to score from too far away.

Cambrian’s head coach Craymer Forth admitted that their game plan from the very beginning was to have a very solid defence because Algonquin “hammered us last time.”