Zoey Duncan
The Borderland Soccer League men’s final last Thursday night felt like a match between alumni and young guns.
At least, that’s the assessment of Rendez-Vous Voyageurs captain Shane Beckett, who has spent plenty of time on the pitch with players from both his team and Manitou Forest Products.
“Most of those guys on that team I’ve coached and have taken to provincials before, so I mean it’s like old versus new, basically,” Beckett remarked.
His team—made up of mostly under-18 players with an average age of 15—kept the final close but Beckett said the combination of a missed penalty shot, an own goal, and a “goofy” bounce contributed to Manitou’s 2-0 win.
“We know that they’re a good team and that they’re going to move the ball well, and they love to attack,” he noted.
“And our job was going to be to try to keep their attack high and to the outside, so they don’t have quality scoring chances and try to take advantage of any opportunity that we’re going to get, which isn’t going to be very many.”
Going into the final, fourth-place Rendez-Vous, which went just 2-14 during the regular season, was riding high after upsetting first-place Pharmasave in the semi-finals earlier in the week.
“You would have thought we’d won the championship,” Beckett said of his team after their semi-final shocker.
“No one was expecting it [yet] I’ve been saying all year that there’s no reason why we not only can just be competitive in the league, but we should be able to win games.”
Beckett noted his Rendez-Vous team is made up of half Muskie soccer players and half who are looking to make the team or who just want to play soccer in the summer months.
All of them, however, have been able to take their play up a notch during the 16-game season.
“They learn a lot about the game and have a lot of fun while they’re at it,” Beckett said.
“Over the course of the summer, you just see confidence build, skill levels build.
“They learn a little bit about the game; that it’s not always about being the guy who scored the goal and those type of things,” he added.
Manitou was not about to take the Voyageurs lightly, stressed Andrew Sonnasinh.
“After I heard they beat Pharmasave, I couldn’t believe it,” he admitted. “But I knew that we shouldn’t under-estimate them, they’re a good team.”
“When it’s only a one-game final, really anything can happen,” echoed teammate Tanner Kaemingh.
“We knew not to take anyone lightly.
“We probably had about two games against the Rendez-Vous that were only one-goal games this year,” Kaemingh added.
“They actually played us pretty tight all year and so we knew to expect a pretty competitive game.”
On the women’s side, Al’s Racquet Stringing topped Taggs Source for Sports by an identical 2-0 score.
That final also featured a good dose of youth in the lineup: three mother-daughter duos tied on cleats for Al’s this season.
The youngest players are 13 while their parental counterparts are “forty-something,” said team captain Sherri Christiansen, who plays alongside her daughter.
“My daughter’s really good at soccer—not just because I’m her mother,” Christiansen joked.
“It’s not mother-daughter out on the field. You’re teammates,” she stressed.
Taggs’ appearance in the final was quite unexpected given they ousted top-ranked Boston Pizza 8-2 in the semi-finals despite finishing well back in last place during the regular season.
When Al’s took the championship, everyone was feeling positive afterwards.
“It was pretty even,” said Sara Kellar of Al’s. “But I don’t think we ever got close to panic mode, we kept cool heads. . . .
“We know we can score against any team, we know we have that capability, so it’s never over ’til it’s over,” she added.
“We just keep that in mind and keep trucking.”
