The beat goes on for Mavericks 09.
The St. Albert Women’s Soccer League powerhouse pounded the drums for its 31st consecutive victory in Sunday’s 6-0 shutout of the Morinville Ladies at Forest Park field.
The Mavericks have not lost in league or provincial play since the 2013 division one final, a 3-2 upset by SA Force, a SAWSL team that is no longer in existence.
Last year the Mavericks were a perfect 20-0 as the Alberta Soccer Association Tier 3 champions – the first provincial gold medal by a SAWSL team in the league’s 20-year history – and division one playoff winners.
This year the Mavericks finished on top of the single division table at 10-0 (86 GF/6 GA) and continued their winning ways in the division one opener against Morinville (8-1-1, 55 GF/16 GA in the single division).
“Obviously our goal is to remain undefeated. It puts us in the best position possible,” said Suzanne Schulz, the team’s top gun this year with 19 goals. “But to go through a second season undefeated would be incredible for sure.”
A provincial repeat is also high on the priority list for the Tier 4 bronze medallist in 2012 and fourth-place finishers in Tier 4 in 2010 and Tier 3 in 2013.
“We’ve had a pretty successful season so far but provincials is going to be a challenge,” Schulz said. “We’re always preparing as best we can with winning provincials as our end goal. With each game we take it one step at a time while working on refining our skills and working together as a team.”
The Mavericks spent Sunday’s match sharpening their offensive skills against a Morinville side short of bodies. If it wasn’t for Danielle Lafond’s outstanding performance in the Morinville net the Mavericks would have easily reached double digits in goals.
“Dani made some really good saves,” said Schulz in praise of the player of the game. “Our biggest focus was just to maintain possession and give us as many opportunities as possible and stop them from getting any and I think we did a pretty good job of that.
“Unfortunately they didn’t have a full squad to start the game. Obviously we would like to have the best opposition as possible but they still put up a good fight.”
Morinville fielded nine players for the 5:04 p.m. kick off and Lafond’s hasty arrival in the second minute, fresh from family reunion weekend, gave the team a big boost.
“It was a tough game. We were a little bit short benched and I think we all felt a little bit rushed,” Lafond said. “I think that definitely set a tone to the game. Everyone was kind of frantic.”
Lafond, 24, touched the ball more times throughout the one-sided 90-minute contest than all of her teammates combined.
“I have no idea how many shots I faced,” said Lafond, who broke her ankle in the 2013 Tier 3 bronze-medal match as the Mavericks’ keeper for provincials. “In a situation like that today you’re just kind of in a zone. You just go for it and you see what happens. You’re always trying to get it up the field and if it comes back to you it comes back to you. You just try and survive.”
Despite dominating the first half the Mavericks only led 2-0 on goals by Schulz and Christine Guay. Sarah Crerar nailed the crossbar in the 10th minute when it was scoreless and booted a ball wide of the right post on a breakaway in the 28th minute when it was 1-0.
In the second half Schulz was the finisher twice in the opening 12 minutes.
“My team is great at giving me fantastic balls. They set me up so well,” said Schulz, 34, the 2012 Golden Boot scoring champion with 17 goals. “We’re fortunately that we have so many strong players on our team. If you look at the top scorers in the league we have quite a few of them (eight Mavericks scored five or more goals in the single division) so if I’m not scoring or if I’m not there, somebody else can step up and score also. We just have a fantastic well-rounded team so there is no pressure on me. I know there are tons of other girls who are happy to step in and score as well.”
An attempted header by Chelsey Marques went off her back shoulder and into the net for the fifth goal and Lindsey Hornung potted the last marker.
The last time Morinville beat the Mavericks was 2011 for the division one pennant and a Tier 4 provincial berth. The winless streak includes last year’s 2-0 setback in the division one final and last month’s 4-1 result.
“Obviously we would like to match up with them again and try and show them what kind of team we actually are,” Lafond said. “Right now we’re still trying to find out what kind of a team we are. We have quite a few new girls this year so we’re trying to sort out positions to see where everyone can best play as we see what type of team were trying to evolve into.”
