The U12 Athabasca Black Widows girls soccer team wrapped up their season on a high note last weekend.
The girls made the trip to Edson to compete in the provincial championships. Amongst a challenging field of 12 teams, the girls won two of their three games and finished in fifth place.
All three of those games were played against teams that Athabasca had never encountered before.
Being ranked as the fifth best team in the province was a source of pride and excitement for the girls, according to coach Glenn Martin.
“We played fantastic, a lot better than I thought we would,” he said.
“We did really good for our team. We played our best soccer of the year.”
They got started with a tough 2-0 loss to Bonnyville. The game was relatively one-sided, with Bonnyville owning a 20-2 advantage in shots. But the coach gave a lot of credit to his goaltender, Miranda Martin, who stopped all but two of the kicks aimed her way and kept her team in the game.
“She stood on her head,” he said.
In the second game, the Black Widows bounced back when they took on Sherwood Park and beat them soundly by a score of 4-0.
Sherwood Park had previously tied Fort Saskatchewan, a team that finished ahead of Athabasca in the regular season standings. That gave the local girls extra cause to feel good about their victory.
Though they won their second game, the loss to Bonnyville meant that the Black Widows would miss out on the medal round.
Instead, they faced off with Sylvan Lake in a game that was so even, it went to penalty kicks after regulation time ended in a 1-1 tie.
After eight kicks for both teams, it was Athabasca’s Alisa Markowski who became the hero by scoring the winning goal.
Though only one player can score the winning goal, all of the girls felt like heroes at the end of the tournament, and rightfully so.
The girls couldn’t have asked for a better way to cap off a stellar year on the soccer pitch.
It was a year in which they lost only one game in league play.
“This was the best end to the season we could have had,” said the coach.
“Everyone played great.”
Two other Athabasca teams competed at provincials last weekend. Watch for their stories in next week’s Advocate.
