A pair of Okotoks schools finished atop the podium at the South Central girls soccer championships after the heavy favorites were ruled guilty of foul play off the pitch.
The Holy Trinity Academy Knights (HTA) won the zone title, hosted by Hugh Sutherland School in Carstairs on Oct. 13, and the Foothills Falcons walked away with the silver. Cochrane High School actually finished with the best record in Carstairs, but was disqualified for using ineligible players who were allegedly Grade 9 students.
“We just finished our last game and we were waiting to get our silver medal and they came up to us and told us we actually won the championship,” said Knights stopper Kaitlin MacEachern. “We were all pretty shocked and really excited about it.”
The Knights defeated the Falcons 6-1, lost to Cochrane 6-1, defeated George McDougall 2-0 and squared off with Hugh Sutherland in penalty kicks to close out the tournament, a game that would ultimately earn them the gold medal.
The combatants were tied 2-2 after regulation and nothing was settled after the minimum of five penalty kicks per side.
MacEachern stepped up in the eighth round and buried her shot, followed by a save from Knights goalkeeper Vanessa Fuentes to clinch the victory.
“I remember walking up and thinking I was so nervous because if I miss this and they score then we’ve lost so I kept feeling all the pressure,” MacEachern said. “Then huge relief went off when I did score.”
At the other end of the pitch Fuentes, who normally plays as central midfielder for the Knights, kept her cool to make the game-winning save.
“It went on for what seemed like forever,” Fuentes said of the penalty kicks. “I heard my good teammate Melissa Bellman say ‘react and don’t guess’ so thankfully after a while I stopped the last shot.”
HTA head coach Kris Antoniszyn called his team’s performance in Carstairs the best he’s ever seen a Knights team play.
“The girls stepped up their play in all facets especially toughness,” Antoniszyn said. “We haven’t really been pushed until this tournament and the team really did show what it was made of when put into tough positions like coming back from being down in the second half and winning in penalty kicks.”
HTA finished second to Cochrane at zones last season.
“Last year we were kind of disappointed we got second so it really felt good winning it this year,” MacEachern said. “Being a Senior it was really amazing to win it.”
Resilient Falcons swoop silver
The Foothills Falcons got their revenge on the scoreboard in a feisty tournament finale against the George McDougall Mustangs.
Foothills’ Amanda Carruthers was punched by a Mustang shortly after the second half after pointing out, along with some teammates, to the referee the guilty party had not removed her lip piercing at halftime.
“I was just looking over at the sidelines, I think my dad had said something to me and then I turned back and there was her fist punching me in the face,” Carruthers said. “I don’t really know why she punched me.”
Carruthers then stepped right up to score on the resulting penalty kick, one that came along with a red card for the George McDougall player, to tie the game 1-1.
“My team just told me that I should take it because I deserved it,” Carruthers said.
The grueling match would go to penalty kicks where the Falcons came out on top, with a clinching goal by Caitlin Dales who was also playing in goal for Foothills, to earn a particularly satisfying victory.
“The girl that punched me pretty much ruined their chances at getting a medal in zones,” Carruthers said. “So just being able to make her feel that way made us feel pretty good about ourselves.”
Following the George McDougall contest, the Falcons were overmatched 8-0 at the hands of Cochrane.
The Falcons earlier defeated Hugh Sutherland 2-1 in their tournament opener with Dales grabbing a late game-winner. They would lose their second match of the day 6-1 to HTA.
The 2-2 record gave the Falcons a third place spot in the standings, but with Cochrane disqualified Foothills was awarded the second-place finish.
“After all that we were quite happy to get a silver medal out of the whole thing,” said Falcons coach Jared Nudd. “Playing four games in 24 hours is tough for anybody so having to do that, having Amanda get sucker-punched and having no subs in the last game what the girls did to play the way they did is outstanding.”
Both the Falcons and Knights entered the Foothills Athletic Council championship on Oct. 16 in Okotoks on a considerable high.
The Falcons are two-time defending champions, but have lost both meetings this season to the Knights. Results from the game were too late for press time.
Check next week’s issue of the Western Wheel for a story on the final.
