Jefferson Hagen, MacEwan Athletics
EDMONTON – MacEwan fired 25 shots toward the Lethbridge goal on Sunday and held the ball for most of it, but their dominating efforts went unrewarded in a scoreless draw with the visiting Lethbridge Pronghorns on Sunday at Clarke Stadium.
The Pronghorns failed to register a shot on goal in a windy, overcast Canada West women's soccer contest, but keeper Chelsey Galbraith registered nine saves to help the visitors nick points for a second-straight day after drawing Alberta 2-2 on Saturday.
"Yup we are," said assistant coach Kayla Wurzer when asked if she was happy with the result given the tilted field of play. "First weekend of the season, so we have a little bit to build on.
"I think this was a successful weekend for us. We're happy with this tie and the one yesterday, as well."
It was all Griffins early. In fact, Lethbridge didn't have possession of the ball in MacEwan's half until the 12th minute as the home side tried over and over again to find a way through the Pronghorns D. They were missing that final touch, though.
Unfortunately, for the Griffins that would be the theme of the game.
"It's disappointing, but it's early," said head coach Dean Cordeiro of the result. "Listen, when we don't have a six-point weekend and we feel like we've left some points off the table, that's just where we are as a program and mentality. But this league, almost everybody has dropped points already. Lethbridge, they came into Edmonton and tied the U of A yesterday and tied us today, so credit them."
MacEwan's best chance of the opening half came in the 33rd minute when Sunder West sent Meagan Lemoine in alone but she curled it just wide of the left post.
The Griffins nearly scored in the 48th minutes as half-time sub Shanice Alfred ran in alone on the left side and sent it an inch over the bar.
Galbraith then stopped a hard blast from Lemoine in the 68th and MacEwan suffered through several more near misses before the final whistle.
"We've got to get more shots on target and that's something we'll walk away with today not being happy with," said Cordeiro. "We were crushing some balls today, but sometimes we've just got to get balls on target and make people make saves. It happens. That's where we fell victim in this game chasing a goal until the final moment.
"It looked like it was going to come. It's one of those things where we just ran out of time. Again, we played on our front foot and we put players in bad spots, but we've got to execute if we want to win."
Emily Burns picked up her second-straight clean sheet as the Griffins improved to 1-0-1, while the Pronghorns have two points on the table at 0-0-2 after the opening weekend of the season.
MacEwan next heads out on the road to visit Thompson Rivers University on Sept. 13, while Lethbridge returns home to host Victoria on Sept. 14.
