The women’s soccer team has had a rough season battling injuries and tough teams. They overcame all their struggles and brought home a win against NSAC 2-0 on October 18.
“Knowing that we can beat NSAC, the girls focused and gave them some responsibility to focus on simple things like passing and control. They put it together and we changed a couple of players around and it worked” said coach Singh.
Amanda Benedict was responsible for scoring both goals for the Tommies. She was moved from mid-field up to striker. Samantha Silver came back from injury so she played mid-field, which allowed Amanda to move up and play striker.
“She managed to put two away and get some good interplays,” Singh said. NSAC had a couple of chances to score, but the Tommies made sure it didn’t happen.The team has been plagued with injuries and has had to deal with many setbacks. Six of their starting 11 players were out at various times with injuries.
Singh believes that the women’s team has improved over the course of the season.
“We’ll be ready for next year’s season. A lot of the players will be put on training programs over the winter and spring and getting them fit in the summer so they will be back ready to go,” he said.
The team expects to have 13 or 14 players return. Singh says that he is currently recruiting players from both Canada and the United States. He’s hoping that it will help strengthen the team and encourage better play next year, which is something the team needs. Singh is optimistic that it will be a better season next year.
When asked about his view of this season, Singh said “it has been a challenge and it’s been a huge learning curve for myself. Not knowing the players and not knowing the qualities each individual has, but we have underachieved. I personally think we could have done a lot better, but that’s the way it is and hopefully we will do a lot better next year.”
The team is saying goodbye to long-term co-captain Jenna Cross. “I think luck had a lot to do with it,” Cross said. “We were unlucky in games and we were unlucky in the fact that six of our starting 11 players were injured. It was disheartening to see us come together at the end of our season. If we had played with the same formation and same attitude and heart, it would have been a different outcome. I’m proud of the team for our improvement. It’s bittersweet to be done.”
