Submitted by Mount Boucherie High School
The Mount Boucherie Bears girls soccer team competed at the Provincial championships this past weekend and scored a medal.
The tournament was hosted by Fleetwood Park Secondary and held at Newton Athletic Park in Surrey.
The Bears beat South Delta 3-1 with goals from Kailey Nicholl (14 minutes in, on a free kick), Sydney Solland (15 minutes in, from Jordan Tassone), and Jordan Tassone (39 minutes in, from Sydney Solland). South Delta won this year’s Vikes Classic at UVic and are a very strong team. They won provincials in 2008 and were one of the favourites this year.
The Bears tied Kitsilano 0-0 in their second pool game. They were a very good team, the #1 team in Richmond-Vancouver. They were ranked #1 in the Bears’ pool.
The Bears beat Belmont 2-0 in their final pool game, with goals from Sydney Solland (8 minutes in, from Jordan Tassone) and Jordan Tassone (70 minutes in, from Breanna Anderson). The second goal was in stoppage time and put us ahead of Kitsilano on goal differential. Had they not scored that goal, they would have gone to a shootout against Kitsilano to determine who was first in pool.
The Bears would then cross over with Handsworth (the 2009 provincial champions) and went to overtime after a 0-0 regulation score. Overtime solved nothing, so they went to a shootout, defeating them 4-3 in penalty kicks. The Bears would get goals from Michelle Blackburne, Kailey Nicholl, Nikayla Gabriel, and Jordan Tassone. Bears’ goalkeeper, Baily Weymouth, made two great stops in the shootout after a fantastic game in regulation and overtime. She really showed why she is the captain of this club.
Mount Boucherie would then play Panorama Ridge in the championship game (they were the top team in the Fraser Valley (24 teams in their league, or more) and have three fantastic players: two provincial team players and a goalkeeper who plays for the Whitecaps Prospects team. From the beginning of the tournament, they were heavily favoured to win this year’s title. They possessed the vast majority of the chances, but the Bears defended extremely well. The clubs were scoreless at half, but then one of their provincial team players broke the deadlock on a hard shot about halfway through the second half, a goal which proved to be the game winner. The Bears played extremely hard and made Panorama Ridge really work for the win. Considering that they had outscored their opponents 20-2 in their previous four games, including a 4-1 semifinal win over Dr. Charles Best Secondary, Head Coach Adrian Zuyderduyn very happy with the showing.
The championship was the Bears’ 30th game this season, starting with our exhibition games in early March, followed by a trip to Maui during spring break, league games, two tournaments, and Valley playoffs. All in all, it was a very successful year for girls soccer at MBSS. The same goes for girls soccer in the area, as OKM earned a silver medal at the AA provincials. Okanagan soccer continues to do very well.
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