Jefferson Hagen
MacEwan Athletics
EDMONTON – After rattling off four-straight wins, the defending U SPORTS women's soccer champions are now ranked sixth in the country.
They'll take it. But make no mistake, the MacEwan Griffins have much bigger goals than that.
"We're trending in the right direction," said head coach Dean Cordeiro, whose team has recovered from a 2-2-0 start to take over top spot in the Prairie Division just past the midway point of the Canada West regular season. "That's been one of our slogans. We want to climb.
"You don't want to be that No. 1 team right now. You want to be that No. 1 team at the end of the year."
The Griffins will aim for a continued ascent up that chart as they head to Winnipeg for a pair of road contests this weekend. The 6-2-0 squad will visit Manitoba (3-4-1) on Saturday (11 a.m. MT) and Winnipeg (1-6-1) on Sunday (10 a.m. MT, both Canada West TV).
"Slowly, but surely, we're making our way up the rankings, but we need to ensure we're doing the right things day in and day out," stressed Cordeiro. "We've got big goals as a group after the year we had last year. We're going to take it slowly. We've just passed the midway point of the season and we love the fact we're sixth. One of our goals is to be close to No. 1 going into playoffs. That's when you want to be playing your best football.
"We are a completely different team today than we were when we started ourselves on this journey. We're excited about the outlook is on this group and the rest of the season."
The Griffins last faced Manitoba in the preseason when the Bisons visited Edmonton on Aug. 2-3. MacEwan won both (4-1 and 3-0), but they know the regular season is a completely different animal.
"We know Manitoba pretty well," said Cordeiro. "We've played them a bunch of times over the past few years. They're a good team and they're well coached by Vanessa (Martinez Lagunas). We're going to have to be at our best.
"We're in good form right now. I think it's more about us going out and doing what we need to do and playing our game. That will be our main focus is making sure we clean up a few things from this past weekend. We like what we've been doing, but every game presents a new challenge. University of Manitoba will definitely be up for it."
Winnipeg is near the bottom of the standings, but over-estimating them isn't something the Griffins plan to do.
"They're coming off a strong weekend," said Cordeiro. "They won their last game (1-0 over Regina). Amy (Anderson)'s done a good job there. They're a younger team. Again, whenever teams are at home in front of their fans and supporters the game presents new challenges.
"For us, our focus right now is on the first match on the Saturday, but we'll quickly shift our focus to the University of Winnipeg on Sunday."
