Despite no medals or trophies, St. Albert Impact coaches had high praise for their players at last weekend’s Victoria Day Classic girls’ soccer tournament.
The four-day event featured teams from all over Alberta and the Capital region, including Impact teams from the U12, U14, U16 and U18 categories.
Coach Amanda Herlein was pleased with her U14 team’s fifth place finish.
“I’m thrilled with fifth,” Herlein said. “I think it was a great starter to the season. We lost the first game, but we battled back both games and we came out with wins.”
The team lost 3-1 to Edmonton SW United in its first game on Friday, but scored a comeback with a 4-2 victory over the Fort McMurray Fury on Saturday. They finished up the tournament on Sunday with another 4-2 win over the Sherwood Park Phoenix to garner the fifth place spot.
Herlein said it was good experience for the U14 team to face off with other teams around the province, and she was impressed with their skill following the game one defeat.
“If you don’t get off to a good start, sometimes you lose your mental focus and it’s hard to bounce back from that,” she said. “We don’t have a lot of height, our girls, we met up with a couple of bigger teams and we had to use our speed because we don’t have a lot of strength like them.”
St. Albert Impact’s U12 team also fielded some success, despite finishing fourth overall.
“It was a great experience for everybody, especially for the beginning of the season,” said coach Krista Porter. “This is the first time actually playing in the Impact league for us … we have a whole bunch of new teams we’ve never faced before, so there’ll be a lot of new experiences for these girls.”
But the Red Deer Renegades proved too much for the U12 Impact team on Sunday, and they suffered a 2-0 defeat for a fourth place finish.
Porter said it was a good first tournament for the team, and now they can focus on improving their skills for the coming season.
“It was kind of a season opener for us, so we were using it to kind of figure some things out for the season,” Porter said. “We’ve got a very, very strong defensive team, so we’re just going to really continue attacking [that] offensive type of game.”
St. Albert’s U18 Impact team was swept in three games. On Saturday, the team lost 2-1 to the Camrose Inferno and later that day 6-0 to SW United. On Sunday, they finished the tournament with a 3-1 loss to the Edmonton Extreme. St. Albert’s U16 team fared better. That team beat the Sherwood Park Phoenix for a 6-0 win on Sunday to place fifth overall.
Weather was also a factor at the tournament. Temperatures ranged from the low 20s early in the weekend, to near freezing with scattered flurries during the medal games on the holiday Monday.
The intermittent moisture didn’t cause any delays, but Porter was happy her team finished on the Sunday.
“We lucked out,” Porter said. “We finished yesterday right as the weather turned so the weather was fine. The tournament was well run.”
