Jefferson Hagen, MacEwan Athletics
EDMONTON – They say time heals all wounds, but it will only have been 20 days since the Griffins women's soccer team last faced the Lethbridge Pronghorns when they meet again on Saturday.
There's no doubt they left points on the table back on Sept. 8 when the teams played to a scoreless draw at Clarke Stadium. The contest was so tilted in MacEwan's favour that the visitors didn't register a shot on net.
While that will certainly be in the back of their minds this weekend, the Griffins aren't spending time dwelling on the past.
"It's a brand-new game," said head coach Dean Cordeiro. "We're hungry to get a win every time we play. Will it be a little bit of added motivation for our team that knows maybe we deserved a little better fate that day and we dropped a few points? Absolutely.
"So, I think they'll be fired up that way. But it can't change our mentality. It's one game at a time. It's a 90-minute performance and we've got to be ready for anything."
After the Griffins (4-1-1) meet Lethbridge (0-4-2) on Saturday (12 p.m.), they travel to Calgary for a meeting against Mount Royal University (0-5-1) on Sunday (1 p.m., both games on Canada West TV presented by Co-op). The Cougars are also fresh in their minds; the Griffins hosted them on Sept. 7, winning 2-0.
"There's some familiarity for sure," said Cordeiro. "The unique thing is usually when you play that team a second time in a year, it's usually at the end of the season. It's unique that we played them Games 1 and 2 and now we're playing them 7 and 8. They're still very fresh in our mind.
"Definitely, we'll review that film and that game day, but us as well as both Lethbridge and Mount Royal have made a ton of adjustments since the opening week. Teams are always getting stronger as the year goes on."
The Griffins are coming into the weekend off their first loss of the season – a 1-0 setback to Trinity Western last Sunday. The goal against, coming off a corner kick, was their first allowed in 2019 and has them tied with UBC for the stingiest squad in Canada West.
"We don't get too caught up in that," said Cordeiro. "It's more or less about playing the right way and doing what we can in front of the ball to ensure we're tough to play against, not leaking too many chances and make it very difficult for the opponent to score. We'll take one goal (against) in the last six games. That's a tough streak to keep, for sure. We haven't got scored on in the run of play, so that's one (streak) we'll look to keep going.
"Bottom line, though, is every game presents a new challenge; it's about getting back to our winning ways and putting the ball in the net and executing a little more," he added. "A byproduct of that is definitely being tough to play against by keeping the ball out of the back of our net."
