Soccer sub woes

Times Reporter 

 

Strathmore High’s girls soccer team had their first match of the year on Sept. 19, and hoped for a better start to this season – they were winless in 2012. Unfortunately, Foothills Composite High School proved too powerful, winning by a landslide of 9-0. SHS had no subs for the game, as four players had prior academic responsibilities.

“As the career advisor councilor here, I’m not going to stop them from building their resume and becoming well rounded individuals,” said Coach Kaitrin McDonnell. McDonnell typically likes to carry 18 players on game days, and this was the first time her team had competed in 45-minute halves.

“Basically, we need to work on conditioning, which we knew coming into it,” said McDonnell. “We had an extra week this year, instead of last year we pretty much started the first week of games and didn’t have a lot of experienced players. This year, we have a lot of Grade 10’s, which is great for upcoming years.”

McDonnell could not attend the first match, but had a positive response from those at the game.

“I heard wonderful things from our coaches, assistant coaches, and volunteers,” she said. “We let in a couple goals, and that’s just how it is. Our defense is strong, our goalies are strong – we’re trying our very best, but we need to work on our offense.”

On Sept. 24, the girls traveled to Okotoks to face Holy Trinity Academy, for which the results were not available as of press time.

“This game is going to be totally different. I’m expecting great things,” McDonnell said about the Holy Trinity game.  “We’re changing up our goalies, we’re changing up our defense. We saw some people at practice last night and at the game on Thursday that really shined in different positions. So we’re going to do a little bit of the soccer shuffle, and move some kids around.”

With another game on Sept. 26 against Highwood High School, McDonnell is hoping this will bring a little more experience to her team, who typically face much stronger schools.

 “I think they got a taste of what the league is about, on Thursday. Foothills Composite is one of the best teams in the league. I know there’s only five of us, and we’re kind of the underdog,” she said.