ESA Complex – The championship status for the St. Albert Impact 4 women remains intact after repeating at Tier I provincials.
“It feels really good to win it two years in a row because it solidifies the idea that we’re a competitive team,” said scoring threat Brittany Kindzierski after Monday’s 3-0 decision against Pass FC of Calgary to finish the Alberta Soccer Association tournament undefeated in three matches.
The Impact’s 16-3-2 (88 GF/28 GA) overall record includes one more victory than last year at 15-3-2 (85 GF/31 GA).
“This year feels very much like last year. We just kind of kept rolling,” said forward Brittany Purkis, the oldest Impact player at age 32.
Both years the Impact placed second in the Edmonton District Soccer Association division 1A table (11-3-2 in 2019 and 10-2-2 in 2018) for playdown berths in the provincial qualifier to determine the two Tier I reps.
“There were tougher teams in our (division 1A) pool this year so it was harder to get out of the pool just to get to playdowns just to get to provincials so the buildup to it was quite difficult,” said Kindzierski of the Impact finishing one point ahead of the third-place Spruce Grove Saints (11-4-1) in the EDSA table.
Three-quarters of the Impact's roster are returning players with championship experience.
“We had the same core as we did last year. We also brought in a few new people, but not a ton,” said Purkis, noting head coach Brian Murphy and assistant Terrie Wispinski “are pretty good at finding players when we need players” to fill in the gaps.
As for the Impact’s success, “We don’t practice, so that’s not it,” Purkis said.
“We’re just pretty strong across the board,” she added. “We have a lot of key players that keep coming back who probably could be playing a lot higher than they are.”
Kindzierski agreed the team “has quite a good lineup” with its depth of player talent.
“Sometimes it’s hard in women’s soccer with people going on vacation or working so we had a lot of people and everyone was really committed. We always had people at the games and people who communicated if they weren’t coming,” Kindzierski said. “We even took on a couple of girls closer to the end of the season (as trialists) that weren’t part of the team the whole year and they fit right in.”
The sisterhood bond on the Impact is tight.
“The biggest reason and why I play for this team is because we actually all get along. It’s very rare in female sports. but it’s actually the difference maker. We don’t get down on each other and there is no cattiness or anger,” Purkis said.
The Impact stayed strong together with wins of 5-1 against Calgary CJSC and 6-1 against Powerplay FC before goalkeeper Michelle Brodeur recorded the clean sheet against the Pass in the four-team round robin with no medal finals, unlike last year’s tournament in Calgary.
“I would say the games this year weren’t as tough as last year,” said Kindzierski, who slotted her seventh goal at the 2018 provincials in the first half of extra time in the gold-medal game for the 2-1 win over Pinnacle FC of Edmonton as the Impact finished 3-1 (14 GF/5 GA).
Kindzierski’s penalty shot opened the scoring Saturday against CJSC as the Impact broke open a 1-1 deadlock at halftime with goals by Casey Paplawski, Anneke Odinga, Shyanne Walton and Purkis.
Sunday’s resounding outcome against the Powerplay, the top division 1B team at 10-1-1 in the EDSA, was basically the provincial final as the Impact racked up four unanswered goals in the first half.
“We came out ready to fight. We knew they wanted our blood so we knew it was going to be tough, but there became a point where we could tell they were getting frustrated. We were in a flow and we just took over so at the beginning I wouldn’t say we thought we had it in the bag but by the third or fourth goal we knew we had it,” said Kindzierski, who riddled the Powerplay with four goals, including a penalty shot marker, and Gracie Hausch added a pair.
Purkis, Brooklyn Robert and Mia Simon generated goals against the Pass in one of the few matches this season Kindzierski failed to score.
The 2018 EDSA female player of the year tied for the division 1A Golden Boot Award in goals with Jackie Furminger of the Saints at 19 apiece – Walton was third with 14 goals – and with the Impact 1 team Kindzierski was the premier division leader with 12.
Last year Kindzierski's 23 goals in division 1A was 12 more than the next highest scorer and a stint in premier with Impact 1 also produced 10 goals for a share of fifth place in the scoring race.
“Winning that award was a peak in my career. I’ve always wanted to win player of the year so this year I wanted to live up to it. I was sort of telling myself, ‘OK, you’ve got to keep scoring, you’ve got to keep putting the ball into the back of the net,’ and it worked,” said Kindzierski, 28, who completed the Impact 4 season with 28 goals in league, playdowns and provincials combined after compiling 33 last year.
Visit StAlbertToday.ca to view the Impact’s championship team picture.
Tier II provincials
The first-year St. Albert Impact 5 women’s team ended the season with a victory at the Tier II provincials after losing twice in the four team round-robin tournament at ESA Complex.
Julia McDougall struck twice and Makenna Van Der Veen also scored in support of goalkeeper Paige Semeniuk in Monday’s 3-0 decision against the Airdrie United Aztecs.
The Impact, the second-place 11-2-3 (57 GF/24 GA) division 2A finishers in the EDSA, were coming off 3-2 losses to EMFC Swat of Calgary on Saturday and Ital-Canadians/Azzurri on Sunday.
The goal scorers were McDougall and Jenaya Peters against the Swat and McDougall and Emily Pavelich against Ital-Canadians/Azzurri, the first-place division 2A team at 16-0 (117 GF/15 GA).
McDougall led the Impact (14-4-3, 75 GF/31 GA) in goals this sason with 20, including 15 for a second-place tie for the division 2A Golden Boot Award.
