Jefferson Hagen / MacEwan Athletics
EDMONTON – With a goal of one day playing pro and representing Canada on the pitch, Vancouver's Maya Morrell will kick off her university women's soccer career with the MacEwan Griffins starting in 2018, head coach Dean Cordeiro announced on Wednesday.
The leading scorer for Fusion FC the past three seasons stood out at the annual Whitecaps Showcase tournament in Vancouver last Easter.
"I watched her play in a game and she was so dominant," said Cordeiro. "She's exactly the type of impactful player that we wanted to bring into our program."
The co-captain of Fusion FC, Morrell aims to model her game after Canadian superstar Christine Sinclair, not only with the character that it takes to play the game the right way, but also in using her athleticism and size to carve out space in the attacking third of the field.
"My passion is scoring goals," she wrote about herself. "I love driving hard into the box, going shoulder to shoulder with defenders, and challenging them to take the ball off me. I love drawing out the keeper, using all the time and space I have at my disposal, making her dive early, and then putting the ball into the net."
That's music to a coach's ears and a big positive to the future of the Griffins' program, which has been searching for more finish these past two Canada West seasons.
"She's pretty dominant in the air – she can score goals," said Cordeiro. "She's very tenacious in the final third and gives us some size. I think it's an area we need to continue to improve on and Maya will fit that bill quite nicely."
Morrell has played forward and attacking mid in her career, which began at the age of four in East Vancouver. Along the way, she played almost exclusively on boy's teams until age 12, which allowed her acclimate to the physicality that top-level soccer requires. Since 2012, she has played for the Fusion FC club in B.C.'s high performance league.
"Her mobility, presence and pursuit of the ball is off the charts," said Cordeiro. "She checks a lot of boxes and we're just really excited. Much like Brittany Costa this year (a B.C. player Cordeiro also scouted at the Whitecaps Showcase), we feel she's going to come in and play a big role for us."
Morrell has lofty goals of one day turning pro and representing her country. But first, she can't wait to join the Griffins.
"I was really impressed by what I saw when I visited the MacEwan campus," she wrote. "Dean and Rob (Bourbonnais, assistant coach) made me feel so welcome. I can't wait to come to Edmonton, settle into class, meet my new teammates, and play my first game."
Meanwhile, some of her future teammates are embroiled in a battle for playoff positioning as the stretch portion of the 2017 Canada West playoff season plays out. MacEwan (6-4-0) will visit Winnipeg (1-7-2) on Friday (6 p.m. MT) and Manitoba (3-4-3) on Saturday (5:30 p.m. MT).
They're coming in off a pair of wins over UNBC.
"It's harder on the road and we know that," said Cordeiro. "We fully expect to be pushed this weekend and we're going to have to be at our best. Again, it's a short week in terms of training with the game being on Friday, but we're going to prep to correct a few things. We look forward to continuing on the upward trend this weekend."
The Griffins are five points back of Victoria and UBC (both 7-1-2), who are tied for second in the Pacific Division, a point in arrears of Trinity Western (8-2-0). The top two teams in the division will host the opening playoff weekend.
MacEwan certainly isn't out of the running for second, considering their final four games, while on the road, are against opponents with a combined record of 6-25-9. They'll close out the season with a visit to UBC-Okanagan (0-7-3) and Thompson Rivers (2-7-1) – two squads they handled easily on the opening weekend of the campaign.
If they can take care of business this weekend, putting pressure on the top Pacific teams – all who have far tougher schedules remaining – isn't a stretch.
"We're going to have to be ready," said Cordeiro. "They played to a hard-fought nil-nil draw just on Sunday, so they're going to be champing at the bit to try to get full points."
