The Athabasca U16 Devils may have had an easy time getting into provincials, but the team knows it’s not going to any walk in the park come July 8, as they compete in for the provincial title in Camrose.
The Devils were able to qualify for a spot in the provincial tournament after being the only team requesting to participate from the Tri-County area. Head coach Glenn Martin said even though there was no playoff involved, he was quite sure his team would do well.
“We finished a lot higher than (the competition) in the standings, so I’m pretty confident that we would have won the provincial berth anyways,” he said.
Martin and his team had a fairly strong season in the Edmonton Minor Soccer Association (EMSA). After struggling through their first five games, the team was tiered to the bottom half of tier ‘5-Y.’ Glenn said the players got better from there, winning their next five games and bumping up a half tier to ‘5-X.’
In the end, the team closed out the season with a 10-4-1 record.
“When we started our season, it took a few games to figure out which position our players should be in,” Martin said. “So it took a couple of games to move people around the field and find out where they play best. We’re still tweaking the line up right now.”
“I feel our team is consistently improving,” he added. “I think we’re peaking at the right time. We’ve been playing some really good soccer for the last few weeks.”
Within those “last few weeks,” the Devils have scored themselves a silver medal in the U16 Sherwood Park tournament, and snagged a fourth-place finish in the Camrose “Under the Lights” tournament.
Martin said those two tournaments have given him insight into how the Devils are going to compete in their upcoming matches.
“We were competitive in all of our games, so I’m not too worried about any teams that we’re going to meet,” he said. “It’s going to be a close game, and I think we could have beaten every team we played.”
He said the U16 team’s biggest strengths are on the defensive line and in midfield, which keep the goals-against tally low.
“We don’t let a lot of goals in,” he said. “I think we had the fewest goals against in the Camrose tournament – I think we had only two goals against (our team).”
Martin said there are a few things he hopes to warm up with the Devils before the tournament begins, the biggest issue being ball control.
“What we’re trying to work on is moving the ball a little quicker and spreading the field out,” he said. “We tend to bunch together, and there also seems to be a gap in the middle of the field with our mid-fielders pushing up too far.”
All that said, Martin said he thinks the team will have a strong showing at the provincial tournament.
“I think we have a pretty strong team,” he said. “And like I said, we’re peaking at the right time.”
