Trojans fall to 0-2 at Nationals
COQUITLAM, BC, (Nov. 8, 2018) — The SAIT Trojans women's soccer team will be playing for pride now.
The Trojans fell to 0-2 at the Canadian Collegiate Athletic Association (CCAA) Women's Soccer National Championship on Thursday after losing 4-1 to the host Douglas College Royals.
"We felt fine at the hotel, felt fine in the dressing room and then we took the field and started to look nervous again," said Trojans head coach, John Talerico. "Our lack of experience playing at this level really showed today. We made a lot of mistakes, had a lot of turnovers in critical areas. And we paid for it"
The loss means SAIT will have tomorrow off before playing again on Saturday in the 7th place game against the Mount Saint Vincent University Mystics from Halifax, NS.
"We want to finish on a high; we don't want to leave here without a win," Talerico added. "We just need to refocus, regroup and then go from there."
In Thursday's game, the Trojans gave up two first-half goals off corner kicks in which they had difficulty clearing the ball. Hannah dela Cruz scored the first, Caitlyn Danielson had the second.
SAIT's Mataya Blakney (5th year, Calgary, Bachelor of Business Administration) scored her team's lone goal in the 20th minute when she re-directed a beautiful cross from Harleen Singh (1st year, Calgary, Academic Upgrading) into the net.
"How we built that goal is how we typically played this year – crisp passes, great finishes. We just didn't do enough of that today," Talerico lamented.
Douglas added a pair in the second half – one off a penalty kick, the other off a free kick from just outside the box – on plays where the lack of discipline came back to haunt the Trojans. Those came from Sam Kell and Taylor Wettig, respectively.
After giving up just three goals in 12 regular season games, the Trojans have now allowed 10 in two games on the big stage.
"We're very disappointed all the way around," Talerico stated. "Realistically, we have made a lot of mistakes, even myself. . . It's a good platform to learn how to play at a higher level, but we have been punished for it. With the players we have leaving after this season, we feel bad for them, and wish we could have learned about this a few years ago."
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