Cougars miss the playoffs

author: konstantin kharitonov | sports editor

Losing is no fun / nathan mccarville

Soccer team finishes with 3-9-2 record 

The Cougars soccer team finished their season with a disappointing loss in the Canada West play-in game against MacEwan University by a score of 4-0.  

The game started out with a very quick goal from MacEwan, where their striker, Raeghan McCarthy, scored her first of the post-season in the 17th minute. McCarthy followed that up by scoring her second of the match 27 minutes later, with the Cougars down 2-0 just before the end of the first half. That isn’t to say that the Cougars goalkeeper, Kylie Bolton, didn’t show up in the 1st, as she faced a whopping 16 shots in the half. The second didn’t bring out too much relief, as the Cougars surrendered another 14 shots in the 2nd, allowing two more goals from Maya Morrell and Salma Kamel, respectfully. Bolton ended the match with 11 saves, including a whopping eight in the first half.  

The loss highlights the main problems that the Cougars have faced the entire season, mainly with scoring as it is the eighth game this season that the team was not able to score a goal in a game. The team was only ever able to score more than one goal in a game twice in this season, both times coming against the University of Winnipeg Wesmen, who were the only team in Canada West to go winless this season. To say the team struggled this year is an understatement.  

I mean at least they have their goaltending down, but for a team wants to become competitive, allowing 30 shots while only putting up 12 is just not enough. For the team to become more successful at some point, they need more talent in all positions and they need to be able to contribute more than what the team was able to perform this season.  

Now, just saying that they need better players is not going to magically give them those players right off the bat, but the team feels like it needs a spark to jump start their season. Hopefully the new recruits of the summer can provide some extra scoring touch that the team desperately needs. That is also not to say that the team is still relatively young, with most of their players in their first and second years. You hope that they can grow into more dynamic players over the offseason.  

But that still doesn’t wash away the disappointment of this season.