Girls show good, bad in Winnipeg

If the Muskie girls’ soccer team wants to show NorWOSSA they are the class of the league, head coach Struchan Gilson said they’d better start at the exhibition tournament in Dryden this weekend.
The black-and-gold open play Friday at 10:30 a.m. against the host Eagles and then play Rainy River at 4:30 p.m. They close out the tournament Saturday at 1:30 p.m. against Thomas Aquinas (Kenora).
“We want to go there and set the tone that we are unbeatable,” said Gilson, whose squad already has earned a berth to the all-Ontarios later this month as host team.
“We’re a marked team so we want to go there and play really well and get confidence,” he stressed.
The Muskies gained some confidence after finishing 1-1-1 at an exhibition tournament in Winnipeg last weekend, including a solid 1-0 win over the Kelvin Clippers on Trista Barker’s goal.
Gilson very much would like to bottle up that performance and let it out again at the all-Ontarios here. If he could, the Muskies might have a shot at a medal.
“We played exceptionally well. We had some really nice chances, and defensively we worked really well and did a lot of things that we wanted,” he noted.
“The tournament was a success because we went up there to see what we had,” he added.
The Muskies opened action Friday with a 2-2 tie against host the St. John’s Ravenscourt Eagles, battling back from a 2-0 deficit on goals by Shannon Koval and Christine Thomson.
Gilson felt the Muskies could “have quite easily” won the game, especially based on their play in the second half.
But after that comeback effort to tie, and then the win over Kelvin, the black-and-gold laid an egg in a 2-0 loss to the Oak Park Raiders to wrap up the tournament.
Gilson admitted he was disappointed with the loss, and felt the score could have been 6-0. Oak Park knifed through the Muskie backs for three breakaways, and also had several other quality scoring chances.
Gilson said one could see the inexperience they have on defence, with players often being indecisive as to whether to attack a loose ball or sit back.
He also noted they had trouble defending free kicks. And those are some of the areas they’ll try to work on in practice this week.
“It was more mental . . . if it happens again, then we have a problem,” said Gilson. “We weren’t in it. We weren’t focused, we were still living on our [Saturday] morning play.”
Still, Gilson said the tournament gave the coaches a chance to get a good look at all of their players in a game situation. And he expects the mistakes they make now won’t be repeated in a month or so.
Still, they don’t have much time to correct those mistakes as they go up to Dryden for another exhibition May 11-12 before the NorWOSSA playoffs May 17-18 in Kenora.
“I saw the experience we have and the inexperience we have out there but I see good stuff in all of our players,” said Gilson.
“We have to get it together because if we have a bad game [at NorWOSSA], we’re screwed,” he warned. “But I’m really happy with our team. Like every team or group, they’ll have good games and bad games.”