The Peter Skene Ogden Secondary School (PSO) Eagles Senior Girls soccer team saved their best effort of the season for their final game of the North Central Zone Championships in Prince George on Monday.
The Eagles defeated Kelly Road Secondary 3-0 in the consolation final to earn fifth place overall.
Abbey Foote led the offence with two goals and Ashley Holyk netted the game-winner early on to pace the offence.
The back four of Hannah Ray, Lauren Popadinac, Marina Guimond and Emily Machado played terrific the entire game helping goalkeeper Nicole Varney earn the shutout.
“We entered zones pretty beat up as two of our top players in Valeria Martinez and Ali Walker, both quick shut-down type defenders, were out due to injury,” said Eagles coach Sean Glanville. “We also had multiple other injuries and were forced to play with no subs all weekend so to patch up our line-up and come away with a convincing win was a nice way to end the season.”
The Eagles were also named the tournament’s Most Sportsmanlike Team for the second year in a row.
“The organizer said every team made a point to say 100 Mile House should win Most Sportsmanlike Team; I think they [coaches] appreciate the fact that we’re not the most talented team but we play hard and the girls conduct themselves in a really respectful manner,” said Glanville.
Unfortunately for the Eagles, they were stuck in a tough group with eventual gold and silver medal winners D.P. Todd and College Heights of Prince George. In games one and two on Sunday the Eagles hung tough for most of both games but late flurries from both spruce city squads led to one-sided victories.
“It’s too bad because I think with our regular squad we could have given those teams much better games and all three teams from our group won on Monday when we crossed over to play the other group, so it was a very strong side of the draw,” said Glanville.
Monday’s victory was a great send off for the Eagles’ two Grade 12 players Daneya Tessaro and Holyk and aside from them, everyone should be back for the Eagles next year.
“With basically our entire team minus Daneya and Ashley coming back to school next year, everyone being a year more mature and physically stronger, we should form a pretty formidable squad,” said Glanville.
Other members of the Eagles squad making strong contributions and playing every second of the tournament included Ivy Sahara, Kaye-lyn Taylor, Maddy Martin and Rene Van Osch.
In four competitions this season including Hope and Clearwater Tournaments, an exhibition trip to Victoria and the Zone Championships, the Eagles finished with a record of seven wins, six losses and three draws.
“Looking back on the season we defeated schools from big cities such as Victoria, Abbotsford, Prince George and several others which is a pretty good accomplishment for a school our size,” said Glanville.
