The Soccer Quest regional girls program wrapped up its season by facing some of the best 16 to 18 year old soccer teams in Western Canada.
The team — made up of female soccer players from throughout the area — traveled to Burnaby Lakes for the Western Canada Showcase on the Easter long weekend. Finding themselves in the top flight of the tiered event and with a depleted squad due to injury, the girls came away with a tie and three losses.
Despite the outcomes, the coaching staff feel the weekend was a success in showing off the Kootenay talent to university scouts.
Playing without Samantha Einerson (broken leg) and Hailey Maclean (torn Achilles) the girls put on a spirited show in the opening game against Burnaby Mountain FC U18’s from the BC High Performance League.
The girls started brightly and were unfortunate to go in 1-0 down at half time,” said Soccer Quest head coach Dave Spendlove.
Burnaby scored the opening goal of the game right on the half time whistle. The Soccer Quest girls had their best spell of possession after the break, but could not break down a resolute Mountain FC defense and ended up losing the game 3-0.
The second game saw a powerhouse Total Soccer Systems U18 girls team dominate from start to finish and they walked away with a 5-0 victory.
“This was clearly the worst performance of the Soccer Quest squad since its inception two years ago,” said Spendlove. “Lack of fitness and players playing out of position were the deciding factors in this one.”
The local girls showed up for the third game with a different mindset against Vancouver Island U18’s.
“We should have easily come in at the half two or three goals in front, the Island keeper making some great saves to keep the opposition in the game,” said Spendlove. “The final result was 0-0, but the girls should easily have won this one. Missed chances were the difference in front of goal by the Kootenay girls.”
The final game against Total Soccer Systems U17 squad was a close game until the last 15 minutes. The Total Soccer team ended up with a 3-0 win.
“This is the last event for this year’s crop of the best players in the Kootenays and the success of the program is evident by the number of girls who have or will be accepting university scholarships over the next few weeks,” said Spendlove, who estimates there will be around seven to eight offers made to the Soccer Quest girls in the near future.
Try-outs for next year’s boys and girls program will resume in June of this year for boys and girls 15 to 17 years old. Go to soccerquest.ca for more information on these upcoming programs.