A disappointing fourth-place finish at provincials didn’t stop Mavericks 09 from repeating as division one champions in the St. Albert Women’s Soccer League.
The second win in a row for the Mavericks after losing their last two matches at the Tier 3 provincials as the 2014 gold medallists was Sunday’s 6-2 decision against the Morinville Ladies.
“Our goals are to score goals and win games and even though we have goals to win the league and win provincials you don’t want that to overshadow the immediate task, which is the game at hand,” said striker Natalie Miller after her hat-trick performance at Forest Park Field. “We all work together as a team to get to that end goal so it’s nice that we can all say we contributed in huge ways. We really support each other that way to get to the end and to check that box and say yeah, we got it.”
The Mavericks were riding high with 35 consecutive wins since losing the 2013 division one final when they suffered back-to-back 1-0 defeats to the Chinook Rogues of Calgary on a sketchy penalty kick in the 58th minute and the Calgary Royals in the bronze-medal match on a fluke score in the 86th minute.
“The competition was strong. The weather was pretty junky too but that’s not an excuse at all. We tried to play our game and we did for many portions of the tournament but things didn’t fall our way. We weren’t always as strong as we hoped we would be for just various reasons,” said Miller of the Mavericks, who let in three goals and scored three while going 1-2 at provincials in Calgary. “It’s good experience for us. We always want to try and compete against those teams so for sure it was disappointing for us. We thought we could have a little bit of a better showing.”
The Mavericks shrugged it off to down Cosmos FC 4-1 in the semifinals before polishing off Morinville for their 16th win (118 GF/11 GA) without loss this season in SAWSL.
“Each game is just a new game. It’s a completely different situation,” Miller said. “It was just a team game today. Our defence played so great that we were just able as forwards to stay up and do what we do best.”
A second-half offensive explosion turned a close contest at halftime into a runaway victory.
“Both halves we actually controlled the play the pretty good,” Miller said.
Scoring threats Lindsey Hornung and Suzanne Schulz found the back of the net and Alison Johannesen sealed the deal late in the match. Sue Forest-Trainer was in net.
Mel Duro struck twice for Morinville in the second half but after each score the Mavericks pushed back to restore their two-goal advantage. The first Morinville goal five minutes into the second half was iffy, as Suzanne Douziech tracked down a ball that just rolled slightly over the touchline near the trees and sent it downfield with a mighty boot for Duro to salt away. There are no linesmen in SAWSL matches otherwise the scoring play would have been blown dead.
“I don’t even know if it’s an answer back by us when they scored,” Miller said. “We just play our game so it’s not so much like we worry if they score, we just keep playing.”
Miller, 32, beat Morinville’s ace goalkeeper, Dani Lafond, as the finisher on three set-ups that put her in prime position to score.
“It was just a huge team effort and I was glad to be there at the end for my teammates,” said one of the many top guns on the Mavericks. “We just have confidence in everybody’s abilities.”
Morinville (12-3-1) remains winless against the Mavericks since winning a Tier 4 provincial berth and the division one pennant in 2011 with a 5-2 decision. Morinville lost last year’s final 2-0.
CORNER KICKS: The SA Blaze (9-6-1) repeated as division two champions Sunday with a 1-0 result against Mavericks 95.
Last year the Blaze knocked off Gini’s in the final with their fifth win of the season.
Mavericks 95 (6-9-2) was one of the original SAWSL teams when the league was formed 20 years ago.
