
The Cambrian Shield women's soccer team would take one extra step than the local men, but in the end, the season for both squads would come to a close mere days apart as both were eliminated prior to OCAA Championship weekend.
The Cambrian ladies countered an early goal from Ashley MacDonald at home on Wednesday as Grace Cranston found the back of the net twice in a five minute span as the entirety of the scoring came in the opening 22 minutes of a 2-1 Shield victory over the George Brown Huskies.
"We did a lot of video analysis on George Brown," noted Cambrian head coach Jason Garforth as his team travelled south on Friday to prepare for a quarter-final matchup with the Redeemer Royals the next day.
"We had a system that forced them to play wide the whole match, which worked quite well."
Unfortunately, trying to slow down the number one team in the OCAA West Division proved much more problematic as goals by Joelle Mitton (2nd minute) and Alia Breukelman (11th minute) gave the Royals all of the cushion they would need in cruising to a 3-0 win.
"They're a very fast team with lots of pace," noted Garforth before the match, his team banged up notably, with several of his starters nursing injuries that they valiently played through.
While the men dropped their qualifying encounter on the road on Wednesday, the 7th place Cambrian side (2-6-2) made things more than a little interesting in their battle with the 2nd place Seneca Sting (5-2-3).
The battle was scoreless through to the 85th minute before Marco Frangini-Andrade netted the game-winning goal for Seneca. And lest anyone think this was merely a case of the Shield retreating to their own end and bravely holding on for dear life, goaltender saves actually read 11-5.
While Alessandro Ciampaglia clearly played well as the last line of defense for Cambrian, the Shield were full measure on the counter-attack, unafraid to open the game up to a certain extent.