Joey Payeur
Time-tested sports logic dictates if a team can’t score, it can’t win.
The Muskie girls’ soccer team did their best to disprove that theory this past weekend at the Broncos Challenge Cup tournament in Kenora, finishing sixth with a 2-2 overall record and just one goal scored.
“Overall, it was a good weekend and all of the girls got some really good experience,” said Muskies coach Sara Roach.
“We have some things that we are going to work on this coming week in order to prepare for (the NorWOSSA playoffs) next week.”
Fort Frances dropped a 3-0 decision to the River East Kodiaks in its opener in Kenora.
“The girls played well position-wise, but River East was a strong team and their pace was much quicker than the girls expected,” opined Roach, who had Carmen Godin in goal all weekend.
It was a different story in the Fort’s second game, a 1-0 whitewashing of the Sioux Lookout Warriors, with Jamie Spencer getting the goal for the Muskies and Godin the shutout.
It wasn’t enough, though, for the Muskies to avoid being relegated to the ‘B’ Side of the seven-team tournament, where they faced the Crocus Plains Plainsmen and lost 1-0 on a late second-half goal.
“The girls played really well overall,” praised Roach.
“There were a lot of injuries and we only ended up with one substitute coming into the second half, which made it really difficult and the girls kind of got run down a bit,” she continued.
“The other team had a penalty kick and Carmen managed to save it.”
Fort Frances was supposed to face Sioux Lookout again in its other ‘B’ Side matchup.
But the Warriors dropped a 1-0 decision by default because of having too many injured players to compete, thus bringing and end the Fort’s weekend prematurely.
In NorWOSSA action the previous Wednesday (May 10) in Kenora. The Fort (1-2-1) collected its first win of the season in convincing fashion with a 4-0 shellacking of the Kenora Broncos (0-2-2).
Pasquel Shortreed found the back of the net twice, while Maggie Jean and Aurora McRitchie potted their first goals of the campaign, with Godin registering the shutout.
The Fort then was blanked 3-0 by the first-place Dryden Eagles (3-0-1), who are one point away from clinching first place in the conference and a bye to the NorWOSSA final in Kenora next Wednesday (May 24).
All three teams are slated to meet in the NorWOSSA regular-season finale today in Dryden.
The Fort got good news on the injury front with the return to action of veteran midfielder Jess Steele after what looked like possibly a season-ending foot injury in a pre-season game against the Rainy River Owls.
Steele got into one game during the weekend and proclaimed herself ready to return to the pitch for full-time duty during today’s NorWOSSA games.
Jean was a question mark to play today because of knee issues which may leave her on the sidelines as a precautionary measure.
With the Muskies and Broncos almost certainly on a collision course for the semifinal, Jean was leaning towards sitting out of today’s matches to give her knees some much-needed rest.
Veteran Fort striker Abby Sanders is done for the season with a knee injury.
