The UFV women\u2019s soccer team fell achingly shy of the podium at the CIS national championships, dropping a 2-1 decision to the Ottawa Gee-Gees in the bronze medal game on Sunday morning in Quebec City.
\nThe Cascades dominated the first half at Telus-UL Stadium, and took a 1-0 lead when Jade Palm headed the ball home off Tristan Corneil\u2019s corner kick in the 19th minute.
\nBut they were unable to expand the lead despite numerous chances, and that left the door open for the Gee-Gees in the second half.
\nOttawa striker Pilar Khoury drew her team even in the 71st minute on a penalty kick, and Sophie Curtis scored the game-winner in the 90th.
\n\u201cWe never really regained a foothold in the game,\u201d UFV head coach Rob Giesbrecht said afterward. \u201cI guess we\u2019re paying the price for not getting more goals in the first half, because we were absolutely fantastic.
\n\u201cWe needed to bury a few of those chances to get the result we were after.\u201d
\nThe UFV women\u2019s soccer team was in search of the second CIS medal in program history \u2013 they took bronze in their previous trip to nationals in 2010.
\nThey took a great run at it on Sunday.
\nThe Gee-Gees generated a couple of early chances \u2013 Cascades keeper Kayla Klim had to be sharp to stop a tricky back-heel attempt \u2013 but UFV soon set about dominating the proceedings.
\nTristan Corneil, on a free kick from distance, forced Ottawa keeper Cynthia Leblanc to make a spectacular leap to tip the ball over the crossbar. On the ensuing corner, Corneil set the table for Palm to nod the ball inside the far post to open the scoring.
\nThe Cascades pressed for more, and Danica Kump just missed getting on the end of Karlee Pedersen\u2019s cross from the left. Shortly thereafter, Sunayna Samra fired a shot off the crossbar.
\nAnother Cascades corner yielded more great looks, but Shelby Beck\u2019s header and Carley Radomski\u2019s follow-up shot somehow stayed out.
\nUFV had a 16-6 edge in shots in the opening half, and took a 1-0 lead to the locker room.
\nThe Cascades continued to carry the play in the early minutes of the second half, but the Gee-Gees slowly wrested away control. Klim came up with a highlight-reel stop on Khoury in the 54th minute, lunging to her right to stop the Ottawa striker on a partial breakaway. Later on, she came sliding out to beat a Gee-Gees attacker to a through ball and snuff another scoring chance.
\nOttawa broke through after Khoury was taken down in the box. She stepped to the spot and slotted the ball into the bottom corner to Klim\u2019s left.
\nIn the event of a tied score after regulation time, the game was set to go straight to penalty kicks. But the Gee-Gees struck in the dying minutes.
\nOn a dangerous foray deep in the UFV box, the Cascades stopped Khoury\u2019s progress but were unable to clear the ball. It squirted to Curtis at the side of the net, and her point-blank blast found the bottom corner.
\nKlim was named UFV\u2019s player of the game after a spectacular eight-save performance, and midfielder Kara Delwo was named to the tournament all-star team.
\nThere were tears in the Cascades\u2019 locker room afterward, but Giesbrecht noted that the only three teams to beat UFV this season were the conference champions from Canada West (Trinity Western), Quebec (Laval) and Ontario (Ottawa). All three of those teams will win national medals; tourney host Laval was set to meet TWU in the gold medal match.
\nSo UFV was full value for its fourth-place national finish, which is a fantastic accomplishment. It\u2019s also clear that the Cascades are a program on the rise \u2013 every player on the roster is eligible to return in 2015.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s just been an awesome experience,\u201d Giesbrecht said. \u201cSure, we go home in fourth, but we\u2019re fourth in the country. We\u2019ve got to make sure we go out of here with our heads held high.
\n\u201cIt gives the girls a taste of the national championship, so we can hopefully come back next year and in the years beyond.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
For more information, contact Dan Kinvig at dan.kinvig@ufv.ca<\/a><\/p>\n 11\/14\/2014<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The UFV women\u2019s soccer team fell achingly shy of the podium at the CIS national championships, dropping a 2-1 decision to the Ottawa Gee-Gees in the bronze medal game on Sunday morning in Quebec City. The Cascades dominated the first half at Telus-UL Stadium, and took a 1-0 lead when Jade Palm headed the ball … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"generate_page_header":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5626","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ufv.ca\/announce\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5626","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ufv.ca\/announce\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ufv.ca\/announce\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ufv.ca\/announce\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ufv.ca\/announce\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5626"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ufv.ca\/announce\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5626\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ufv.ca\/announce\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5626"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ufv.ca\/announce\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5626"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ufv.ca\/announce\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}