Lucas Punkari
Despite suffering a tough 5-1 loss to the Kenora Broncos in the third-place game at the St. John’s-Ravenscourt tournament in Winnipeg over the weekend, Muskie girls’ head coach Nicole Rogozinski still was pleased with how her team performed in their tune-up for today’s NorWOSSA season-opener.
“Overall, it was a really good weekend,” she enthused.
“The girls played phenomenal in the first three games, but unfortunately we fell apart a bit in our last game,” she noted.
“At that point, though, we are all facing the heat and sunburn, and it definitely caught up with us in that last game.”
Following a game this morning against the Dryden Eagles at St. Francis Field, the black-and-gold have a chance to eke revenge at 5:30 p.m. when they face the Broncos.
“We know who their fast players and their goal scorers are now, and we will be keeping a close eye on them,” vowed Chantal Jodoin, a Grade 12 defender in her second year with the team.
“In the end of that game [in Winnipeg], they came on really strong but we know what to expect from them now,” echoed Grade 11 midfielder Alexis Hampe, in her third year with the team.
The Muskies opened the tournament on a winning note Friday morning with a 1-0 win over the Kildonan-East Reivers.
“The girls played really well in that game,” Rogozinski said.
“We came out against them right away by playing our game, and the girls made some great passes and played smart out there.
“For their first game in, they looked like a great team,” she added.
The Muskies then suffered two tough losses to conclude round-robin play, dropping a 2-1 decision to the Westgate Wings on Friday afternoon before falling 3-1 to the Oak Park Raiders.
“We played another great game against Westgate and I thought it was a game that we should have won,” noted Rogozinski.
“But we were just unlucky in trying to get a couple more goals.
“Oak Park was probably our most challenging game of the entire weekend as they are a team that is really skilled and play all year round, but our girls stood up to the challenge and played their best game of the weekend,” she added.
“We were able to hold our own against them and the game was tied up at one until the last few minutes, when we got called for a hand ball in the 18-yard box and Oak Park were able to score on a penalty kick.
“After that, the girls got down on themselves a little bit and we allowed one more goal later on,” Rogozinski noted.
Despite their 1-2 record, the Muskies finished in a three-way tie for second in their pool and advanced to the third-place game by virtue of having the better goal differential.
Since then, the black-and-gold have been working on fine-tuning a few things in preparation for today’s NorWOSSA contests, as well as a tournament in Kenora this coming weekend.
“There are quite a few things that we haven’t quite touched on yet,” Rogozinski admitted.
“We need to work on our walls, our free kicks, and our corners as those are all thing that we haven’t gotten to fully yet in practice.
“We also need to keep our passing game and our endurance up, and hopefully something good can happen this week,” she added.
Meanwhile, thanks to their showing in Winnipeg over the weekend, the players themselves are excited to see what the season brings.
“Last weekend was our first time together as a full team, and we learned a lot about how each other works out there,” Jodoin noted.
“We’re working really well as a team and it’ll be good to get some more games under our belts this week,” added Hampe.
