Senior Girls Soccer

SG Soccer White: Home Opener

9/21/2022

By Erik Van Dyke

Finally it was time. The first game of the season. Right here at home, an ETIAC tilt vs Massey Vanier, on a misty/rainy September day. After a week and a half of practice, we were ready – and a little nervous – to get the 2022 season under way.

And the early nervousness got the better of us, with the Vikings scoring on a bang-bang broken play after only 10 minutes. As would be a theme of this game, positioning was the culprit, with an MVR player ending up alone inside the 18-yd box and making us pay with a one-timer into the corner.

But ironically, that settled us down, as we spent the rest of the half pretty much in the Massey end. With Player Of The Game Gloria Riddell dominating the midfield, your Spartans kept constant pressure on the Vikings defense, as evidenced by no less than seven(!) corner kicks in the half, highlighted by Bernadette von Campenhausen capitalizing on a perfectly chaotic corner-kick-scramble to tie the game after 15 min.

Ultimately, there would be no more scoring, resulting in a 1-1 tie to open the season, but that doesn’t mean there weren’t important things of note, ie:

Who played the best positionally? That would be Sara Paquette, who instinctively and efficiently finds ways for the ball to find her.
Mariana Coronel is not against running people over, that’s for sure! Once she decides to go for a ball, there is no fear, no hesitation and no stopping her.
80 minutes is a looonnng time; our second half was definitely worse than our first half, and that is mainly due to FATIGUE, as our team depth disappeared, we stopped being first to the ball, and we lost most of the 50/50 battles.
Charlotte Hughes has got some good speed.
Avah St-Pierre sent several impeccable crosses across the top of the box, with one resulting in a glorious chance that was called back on an offside.
No, Camryn Moore, that was NOT worthy of a yellow card; but she handled it well.
Sometimes it’s better to clear the ball out of trouble instead of trying to play it from the back. This is something we’ll learn as the season goes on.
Strong first game by veteran keeper Maddie Lippmann, who saved every shot she could reach, had solid punts, and is now taking our goalkicks.
And finally, six(6) necklaces is too many.

We went into this game wanting to learn a lot, and we did. So much so, in fact, that in tomorrow’s practice we may well overhaul the entire team formation in order to better use our strengths. Will the new formation be better? As they say in French, “On verra,” but I promise that every player and every coach will not stop trying to improve this entire season. As they say in English, “It’s not how you start, it’s how you finish”.

So let’s see how we finish. Let’s see how much we can improve. Starting tomorrow. And also this weekend at Rothesay Netherwood School in New Brunswick at the Top Of The Hill Tournament! ROAD TRIP!

- Coaches Van Dyke & Kirby

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