The Thompson Rivers University WolfPack women’s soccer team got some top defensive play as it settled for a 1-1 draw Thursday with the host University of British Columbia Okanagan Heat.
The WolfPack led 1-0 at the half. In the 32nd minute, Comox Valley product Camryn Curts intercepted the ball in the UBCO 18 against the flow of play and set up Marisa Mendonca for her first goal of the season.
The host side tied the game in the 66th minute when a cross sailed over TRU keeper Danielle Robertson, another product of the Comox Valley.
“Danielle was solid again tonight,” TRU head coach Kelly Shantz said. “She had her quad taped up and made a number of big stops. She couldn’t be faulted on the goal.”
Robertson and Curts are both first-year players.
“UBCO had the majority of chances,” Shantz said. “We defended very resolutely. There were times that they got the ball inside our 18 and had opportunities. We had six or seven players blocking, diving, doing anything they could to keep the ball out. That saved our bacon without question tonight. We continue to improve our play and make the right moves but we give it away. We make four or five passes but then when we break out we turn it over. We need to break through that in order to win matches like this, hold onto matches like this. I am proud of the girls effort no question. We will always take a road tie. It beats the loss.”
Shantz said TRU’s player-of-the-game was captain Natalie Verdiel, a third-year defender from Powell River.
In a Saturday rematch in Kamloops, the WolfPack beat the Heat 1-0 for the team’s second win of the season. Mendonca again scored for TRU while Robertson earned her second shutout of the year.
“This was a giant victory in a couple of ways,” Shantz said. “We are still trying to chase down that sixth playoff spot. We have seven points. With a little bit of luck in this. Maybe UNBC has a tough weekend and maybe we are in a tie for sixth spot with four games left in the season. We want to have short-term goals. We are a team that is building and that is struggling. Putting up a couple of ‘Ws’ in the way. It is one thing to talk about getting better but getting rewarded like we did today—for gritty, scratchy, fight-it-out, yell at it other, circle the wagons, whatever it took to get a win. The girls get that feeling too that it is never really over, you are never really out of it if you work hard. That was a good lesson today.”
This weekend, the WolfPack hosts the University of Calgary Dinos and the University of Lethbridge Pronghorns.