Soccer Muskies shooting to repeat

Neither side has lost, and both want that trend to continue.
The Muskie boys’ and girls’ soccer squads entered the NorWOSSA championships in Kenora today with no blemishes on their record in pre-season league play as they both look to defend their titles from a year ago.
The teams each posted 2-0-2 records at last weekend’s second “seeding” tournament in Dryden, but started from scratch as they took on the Dryden Eagles at noon today and then the Kenora Broncos at 3 p.m.
That’s because the two seeding tournaments didn’t apply to the three ‘AA’ squads (the Muskies, Broncos, and Eagles). Instead, they were more for the purpose of the single ‘A’ teams—Sioux Lookout, Red Lake, Rainy River, and St. Thomas Aquinas (Kenora)—to crown their own season champ before facing the higher-calibre squads in the playoffs.
The quarter-finals also begin later today, with the semi-finals and finals set for tomorrow.
The top team from the boys’ and girls’ divisions will advance to the NWOSSAA playoffs.
The Muskie boys finished NorWOSSA action with a 4-0-4 record, but head coach Rick Chambers said consistency and ball movement still are lacking in his team’s play.
“We need to work on switching the field better,” said Chambers, referring to his team wanting to pass the ball more accurately from one side of the field to the other.
“Against Sioux Lookout, we scored in the first five minutes [Matt Basaraba’s bullet to the top corner during a 1-1 draw], and then forgot to play soccer for the rest of the game.
“[Sioux Lookout] got one lucky bounce off Rick Ricard’s arm in our own 18-yard box that gave them a penalty kick and that was all they needed,” he added.
Some harsh and heartfelt words followed the draw, providing the catalyst for the male Muskies to straighten themselves out in a 3-0 shutout over the Eagles to close the tournament.
“I ripped a strip off them after the Sioux Lookout game,” said Chambers, who believes his troops have what it takes to make a return trip to the all-Ontarios again this year.
“Then we came out against Dryden and pretty well controlled the whole game.”
Jeremy Wilson notched a pair of goals while Basaraba added the other in that one.
The Muskies were firing on all cylinders against St. Thomas Aquinas in a 4-0 win to open the tournament. Tyler Barker scored twice while singles came from Basaraba and Scott McFayden, who was the object of much good-natured needling at Monday’s practice for his performance in that game.
“We’re calling him ‘Two-Shot’ now, because he missed two penalty kicks in the game and then scored on a beautiful play while he was kicking the ball on the run,” smiled Chambers.
“It’s like I said before, the finishing’s not important—getting the opportunities is.”
Then the Muskies had to fight back from a 1-0 deficit against the Broncos, with Wilson finally tallying the equalizer with less than 15 minutes to play to salvage a 1-1 draw.
“Our defence played really good all weekend,” said Chambers, who was glad Wilson’s goal held up despite a protest about it being offside by Kenora.
“It didn’t look offside from where I was, and thankfully, the referee agreed.”
< *c>Close quarters
Meanwhile, head coach Struchan Gilson wanted his Muskie girls’ squad to come together, but they’re taking it a little too literally.
“Because we do a lot of short passes, we have a tendency to bunch up on one side of the field,” noted Gilson, whose team will be gunning for its sixth-straight NorWOSSA crown in Kenora today and tomorrow.
“When we have half the field empty, and everyone’s on one side, we have to be asking ourselves what are we doing here.”
Early promise was shown in the Muskies’ 3-0 blanking of St. Thomas Aquinas in their opener, with Carling Barton, Rebecca Cornell, and Kate Basaraba netting the goals.
A surprise 0-0 tie with the Kenora Broncos was followed by a 6-0 thumping of Sioux Lookout as six different Muskies connected in the victory.
Barton was joined on the scoresheet by her younger sister, Sarah, along with Cornell, Basaraba, Hilary Morgan, and Nicole Rogozinski.
But against a Dryden team that they had whipped 3-0 two weeks earlier here, the Muskies had noticeably more trouble figuring out the Eagles’ defence as they were held to a 1-1 tie on Cornell’s goal.
“The fact is, we went 6-0-2 [in league play] and gave up one goal—and even that goal was debatable whether it had crossed the line,” said Gilson.
“The conditions were horrible [in Dryden]. It was windy, cold, the field was like cement, and for a ball control team like us, that’s tough.”