Muskie girls still chasing first win

Lucas Punkari

Any coach will tell you that you need to play a game from the start right until the final whistle.
That’s the message Muskie girls’ soccer head coach Sarah Noonan relayed to her troops heading into today’s NorWOSSA matches in Kenora after the black-and-gold played the Kenora Broncos to a 0-0 tie and suffered a 2-0 setback to the Dryden Eagles here last Wednesday.
“If we can take the first half from our Dryden game and combine that with our second half from the game against Kenora, we’ll be all set,” Noonan remarked.
“We started a lot better than we have in the past against Dryden, but unfortunately we had a few misfires in our chances for goals,” she noted
“Then in the second half, we lost our shape and the momentum that we had in the first half and that really hurt us.
A pair of long-range strikes from Carly Kaus ended up being the difference in helping the Eagles earn the victory.
Dryden finished the day with a pair of wins following a 2-0 triumph over Kenora earlier Wednesday.
“If we can play like this the rest of the way, we should be okay,” Eagles’ coach Gabe Mottlho reasoned.
“Even though the score was in our favour, though, this is a very even league again this year so it can go either way,” he stressed.
The black-and-gold’s opening game of the regular season saw them get a few late scoring chances to take a win over the Broncos, but instead were forced to settle for the scoreless draw.
“For our first game of the season, we played to our strengths,” Noonan recalled.
“We had a fairly solid defensive line, and I thought that they did a good job of holding Kenora off of the scoresheet, but we just didn’t get the number of shots that we needed,” she stressed.
On the other side of the field, Broncos’ head coach Janice England was pleased at how her team performed in their season-opener.
“This was actually the first game of any kind that they have played all season, so I thought our team did very well,” she remarked.
When asked who stood out most out of her players in the two games last Wednesday, Noonan pointed to her first-year players.
“Our Grade 9 crew did a really good job in stepping up and being aggressive, and I’m really happy with how they are fitting into the system,” she replied.
After today’s league games in Kenora, the Muskie girls will get set to host a five-team exhibition tournament here Friday and Saturday as Dryden, the Hanover Soccer Club (Manitoba), and St. Patrick’s and Hammarskjold (Thunder Bay) come to town.
Fort High will open play Friday at 11:30 a.m. against Dryden, then square off against St. Patrick’s at 4 p.m.
On Saturday, the Muskies will meet Hanover at 10:30 a.m. before rounding out the event with a 3 p.m. showdown versus Hammarskjold.
“The exhibition games will be good for our younger players to get some more minutes out there and to also help them with development,” Noonan reasoned.
“But our main goal is still to do well in the league play, finish first in the standings, and earn that bye to the final in the last week of the season,” she stressed.