Muskie boys to look for better results in Dryden

There’s no question the Muskie boys’ soccer team didn’t fare very well at an exhibition tournament in Winnipeg last weekend, finishing with a 0-3 record.
The real test now is to get better. Much better.
That certainly will be the Muskies’ objective at a NorWOSSA exhibition tourney in Dryden this weekend, where they’ll meet the host Eagles on Friday at 10:30 a.m. and then Rainy River at 4:30 p.m.
They’ll wrap up play against Sioux Lookout on Saturday at 1:30 p.m.
Muskie head coach Keith Gilbert admitted all three games will be important going into the regular season as there’s no clear-cut favourite in the race for this year’s crown.
“I think anyone can win NorWOSSA,” said Gilbert. “There are so many new faces [on the team], it would be bold for me to say ‘We’re going to win it.’
But there’s no number-one favourite and you always want to win it, there’s no doubt in my mind that we can win it,” he added. “But, then again, we’ve yet to see the competition.”
Gilbert said he was encouraged by a few things he saw in Winnipeg despite their winless record, noting the strong play of Adam McTavish, Nathan Miller, and rookies Barry Selin and Kyle McTavish.
Muskie assistant coach Ben Andrusco felt the Winnipeg tourney could help them when they face lesser-talented teams in NorWOSSA. And he also was impressed with the play of their first-year players.
“It took us a while to get used to the new system put in place by Jason Kabel, and it was kind of tough to play against better competition, so I thought that was a factor,” he said.
“But I think we’ll be a little more optimistic when we start playing Dryden and Kenora.
“Having the tournament under our belts will help us,” he added. “Actually, I was pleased with a lot of rookies who were playing different positions. They really stepped up to do the job,” he remarked.
Gilbert agreed last weekend’s tournament gave a lot of players much-needed experience at the high school level. And that experience will go a long way in improving the team in the next few weeks.
“It was a good weekend, we saw a lot of positives out there,” said Gilbert. “It was an excellent test. We knew going in that we were young and inexperienced. We had veterans playing with rookies but now we have to get better and play better soccer.
“It was the first tournament of the year and a lot of kids had a chance to play as a team for the first time,” he noted.
The Muskies opened the tournament Friday with a 3-1 loss to the River East Kodiaks, then followed that with a 5-1 defeat at the hands of the Tec Voc Hornets on Saturday.
In both cases, the Muskies ran up against two very strong teams. “In reality, we just played a couple of really good teams,” said Gilbert.
“I thought the first couple of games it was just that we played better competition,” agreed Andrusco. “They moved the ball better than us and we didn’t mark up.”
Against River East, the Muskies had grabbed a 1-0 lead in the 14th minute when David Lloyd scored on a nice feed from Adam McTavish. But the Kodiaks tied the game just four minutes later, then broke it open with a pair of goals in the second half.
“River East was a very skilled team and we did a lot of running but they really weren’t great goals,” said Gilbert. “It seemed like River East controlled the play and we had very little in terms of chances offensively.”
Versus the Hornets, Tec Voc grabbed a 2-0 lead by the 15th-minute mark of the first half before Adam McTavish sliced into that lead after he converted a nice feed from Dave Egan.
But that was as close as the Muskies would get as the talented Hornets exploded for three unanswered goals to ice the victory.
Later Saturday, the Muskies went up against 0-2 Glenlawn Collegiate in hopes of picking up a win. But it turned out to be their flattest game of the tournament–resulting in a 4-0 loss that had the coaches scratching their heads.
“It was our most disappointing game,” admitted Gilbert. “We came out pretty flat. We just weren’t in it. It was a lot of little things, like not getting first to the ball.”
What also hurt the Muskies, who already are thin in terms of depth, was the loss of Lloyd due to illness for the final two games. And they were without Ryan Hampton for the final game because of two yellow cards he received earlier in the tournament.
Both will be ready for this weekend’s action.