Okotoks’ two high school boys soccer teams are in a real dogfight to keep the league title in Big Rock Country.
The Canmore Collegiate Crusaders have established themselves as the team to beat in the Foothills Athletic Council (FAC) with an undefeated record, highlighted by wins over the Holy Trinity Academy (HTA) Knights and Foothills Composite Falcons in the last seven days.
The Falcons felt the force of the well-oiled Crusaders offence in dropping their meeting 10-3 to Canmore, May 28 at Kinsmen Park in Okotoks.
“We definitely struggled,” said Falcons head coach Clint Dunford. “It was the first 10 to 20 minutes where we had our chances, we had them by the throat basically and we just didn’t bury those chances.”
The Falcons coach lamented the missed opportunities and said the team lost its focus once things started to go poorly.
“I think it was mostly in our head we had the game, we still can compete with these guys,” Dunford said. “It’s just little things that just got away from us there.”
Foothills striker Jared Nudd tallied a brace to go with a goal from midfielder Garrett Young in the losing cause.
“They were mostly breaks through and shots to the corner,” Dunford said of the Falcons’ three goals. “We caught them on breaks towards the net and then potted them in there.”
The Falcons won their earlier matchup, on May 23, 4-3 over the Notre Dame Timberwolves.
“It was an okay game, we played down to their level a little bit, but the conditions weren’t great. There were huge winds and it was a battle for both sides,” Dunford said. “It was something to build on.”
May 23 also saw a battle for first place between the Crusaders and Knights, one the visiting Canmore club won 6-4.
“We were down 4-0 I think in the first 15 minutes,” said Knights’ head coach Justin Urbani. “They play such a fast transitional game, they go from offence to defence in the blink of an eye and they caught us napping.”
The Knights coach said the team made uncharacteristic mistakes at the back.
“We did not have a good game on defence,” Urbani said. “We made some major mistakes we would normally not make.”
Should the Knights and Crusaders meet again in the playoffs, Urbani said defensive formations will be a point of emphasis for HTA.
“We were flat at the back and once they got the ball by us they were able to use their speed,” Urbani said. “We need to layer our defence use a sweeper and stopper and we need to slow down our attack long enough for our midfielders to get back.”
HTA recovered quickly from their second loss of the season to the Crusaders to soundly defeat the Strathmore Spartans 4-1, May 28 at Riverside Park in Okotoks.
“We had a shaky first half in terms of possession, but once we got our possession game running again it went much smoother for the boys,” Urbani said. “The second half was no contest really, our control, our
possession was pretty much overwhelming.”
The Knights received a first-half tally from forward Stephano Leblic and two goals from midfielder Chad MacPherson in the second half to go along with an own-goal from Strathmore.
The Falcons and Knights will meet for a second time this season tonight, May 30, with kick-off at 4:30 p.m. at Kinsmen Field. The Knights won the first battle of Okotoks by a 5-2 margin on May 9.
“I’m expecting a close fought game. I think we can battle with them and I expect it to be good,” Dunford said. “We’re going to play our game, we get too caught up in different things going on around the field that aren’t actually related to the game.”
Urbani said he doesn’t want to stray too far from what worked last time against the Falcons.
“I don’t want to do too much differently, keep possession of the ball with lots of quick, short, easy passes and just bury our opportunities,” he said.
For full schedules and results go to www.foothillsathletics.ca.
