The defending provincial Tier IV women’s soccer champs opened their season in typical fashion Tuesday with a decisive win.
The St. Albert Mavericks 09 opened the season with a 10-2 win over the Morinville Storm at Forest Park’s north field. The Mavericks looked to be in fine form to continue their winning ways from last season, when they were pennant and playoff winners, and provincial Tier IV bronze medalists.
“The score was a little unfair to the overall run of play,” said head coach Shane Moore. “We got a couple of goals early on weird bounces and they had to open up their play a bit, which allowed us to convert a couple goals in the second half on the counterattack.
“We need to improve on our team defence a bit. The second goal Storm scored was a nice finish from their player on a significant coverage miscue in our penalty area.”
Strong teams like the Mavericks 09 tend to be targets of everyone else in the league after making a name for themselves. Moore said the team is ready to defend their title.
“From a Mavericks perspective, it was a great way to get the season started,” he said.
“We like to play an open attacking style, so goals is a good measure of how we played. I feel like we have a strong team, but the level of competition continues to improve every year.
“We understand that defending is often tougher than winning a title and we are concentrating on putting our full focus on each game in front of us to make sure our effort matches or betters our opponents.”
