Lucas Punkari
The end result wasn’t quite what the Muskie boys’ soccer team was hoping for from the annual St. John’s-Ravenscourt tournament in Winnipeg over the weekend, but head coach Shane Beckett said his squad is shaping up exactly like he wanted.
“I think we’re going to be a really good soccer team in the NorWOSSA league this year,” he remarked.
“In Winnipeg we played really well, especially with our depth on the bench, which really showed in our play against Miles Mac on the Saturday morning,” Beckett added.
The Muskies followed a 2-0 win over St. Paul’s (Winnipeg) on Friday afternoon with a heartbreaking 3-2 loss in extra time to Miles Macdonnell (Winnipeg) on Saturday morning—dropping the black-and-gold into the ‘B’ side semi-final, where they fell 2-1 to Fort Richmond (Winnipeg).
“All day on Saturday, it was wet and cold, and unfortunately our guys played similar to those conditions while our opponents played like it was warm and sunny out,” Beckett recalled.
“They had a little bit more speed than we did, and just had a tough time trying to keep with that,” he reasoned.
One of Fort High’s top performers at the Winnipeg tournament was returning Grade 12 student Dave Chambers, who scored a goal Beckett simply called “ridiculous” in the Muskies’ 2-0 win over St. Paul’s.
“A corner kick came out to top of the 18-yard box and Chambers made a first-time volley on it,” Beckett noted.
“The ball hit the underside of the crossbar, bounced off of the goal line, back off of the crossbar, and then into the back of the net.
“It was quite a goal.”
Another impressive showing during the weekend came from the first-year players for the black-and-gold, who seem to be slotting in nicely to the existing core of returning members.
“Most of those guys are coming out of the U13 program, so they already know what they’re doing out there,” Chambers remarked.
“That’s really good to see and it also gives our coaches a lot more to work with,” he added.
With their pre-season slate of games now in the books, the Muskies now are focusing on their NorWOSSA season-openers today. They squared off against the Kenora Broncos at 10 a.m. before taking on the Dryden Eagles at 4 p.m.
“We saw Kenora warm up a little bit in Winnipeg and they’re going to be a big team who play a physical style of game, but Dryden will be in the exact same boat,” Beckett noted.
“It’s always a battle, though, as there’s never a blowout in our league and it always comes down to the final game of the year,” he reasoned.
With a loss in last year’s NorWOSSA final to Dryden still burned into their memories, the Muskies will be gunning to go all the way this year and advance to the all-Ontarios, which will take place June 2-4 in Windsor.
“Going into this season that’s our goal, for sure,” Chambers said.
“I have to say, especially being a fifth-year player, that this is one of the most talented team that I’ve ever been a part of, and I think that we should have no problem in making it to OFSAA,” he remarked.
