Jefferson Hagen / MacEwan Athletics
LANGLEY, B.C. – Unable to recover from a slow start and a mid- first half goal, the MacEwan Griffins fell 1-0 to the Victoria Vikes in the Canada West women's soccer semifinal on Friday afternoon.
As a result, it will be the Vikes breaking their USPORTS championship drought, advancing for the first time since 2012, instead of the Griffins, who will reload and try for their first-ever nationals berth again next season.
"We came out flat, which was disappointing – not our best half of the season," said Griffins head coach Dean Cordeiro. "When you make the semifinals, you've got to play a 90-minute game and unfortunately we didn't. I don't know whether it was a bit of nerves or whatnot, we came out not as we had hoped. Unfortunately, it cost us with conceding early."
The devastation for the Griffins is palpable after having been 90 minutes away from nationals in consecutive years. After losing 1-0 to Saskatchewan in a 2016 game that would have punched their ticket, they now must digest the same consequence by the same score to Victoria.
"It's massive," said Cordeiro of the level of disappointment. "We're a young team with a lot of experience. We wanted to make that next step and, unfortunately, we came a game short.
"In hindsight, we'll reflect. This is our third-straight conference final and only ourselves, Trinity (Western) and UBC can say that, so we've done a lot of good things," he added. "The majority of the team are third years and they've been to this conference final tournament for the last three seasons and we've come a bit short.
"We want to make that next step. Unfortunately, it didn't come today, but we have lots to be proud of. We're heading in the right direction. We're going to be ready and we'll be back. We'll be punching our ticket sooner rather than later."
MacEwan started slowly and yielded eight corner kicks to the Vikes in the first 23 minutes. Still, their defence stood tall in bend-don't-break mode and didn't allow a dangerous chance.
But Victoria just kept coming, eventually finding pay dirt in the 29th minute. Kiara Kilbey received a touch pass in the box from teammate Elise Butler, deked out a MacEwan defender and planted it inside the right post.
MacEwan picked up the pace after that, charging hard out of the gate in the second half. Suekiana Choucair had the Griffins' best chance when she bent a laser beam of a shot from 30 yards out that was heading just under the crossbar before Vikes goalkeeper Puck Louwes tipped it over the net.
Griffins goalkeeper Emily Burns also got onto the highlight reel when she stopped a 53rd minute low blast from Kilby by laying out to her right.
MacEwan pressed for the majority of the second half but just couldn't break down Victoria's defence – a group that allowed just six goals against all season.
"We weren't in a terrible spot," said Cordeiro of the early 1-0 deficit. "We responded well, made some adjustments at half-time and honestly we played the best second half of the season. We were unfortunate not to get one back. We came close a couple of times. But that's the game. We just ran out of time."
The Griffins will have 24 hours to put the disappointment behind them and try to salvage something out of their third-straight trip to the Canada West championship weekend. They'll face the loser of Trinity Western and UBC – playing in a later semi on Friday – in Saturday's bronze-medal match (3:30 p.m. MT, Canada West TV). MacEwan lost to both teams in the regular season.
"We want to do everybody at the institution proud by getting our first Canada West medal, so we will be ready to play a 90-minute game tomorrow and take care of business," said Cordeiro.
"Obviously that next step we wanted was to get to Manitoba (for nationals). We fell short of our goal, but have a lot of things to be proud of.
"It's tough for our captain Kristen Skrundz, obviously," he added. "Her varsity career started with nationals and we wanted it to end with nationals. Unfortunately, we came up a little bit short for her.
"Typically, when you lose that's your season. Fortunately, we have one more game to play to put a conclusion to everything. You always want to win your last game of the year."
FREE KICKS … A day after being named to the Canada West all-rookie team, Brittany Costa was named player of the game on Friday for MacEwan … Louwes finished with one save for the Vikes, while Burns stopped five for the Griffins.
