On a rainy Sunday morning, the women’s UTM D-league soccer team dropped their sixth game of the season 14-1 to the St. George Black squad. Sian Day scored the only goal in the D-league season thus far for UTM in this contest. With one game remaining on the schedule, UTM is still looking for their first win of the season. They’re sitting at the bottom of the league standings, with a record of 0-6.
UTM was dominated in their end for most of the game, unable to clear the ball into St. George territory. Even though the UTM women gave up 14 goals, their defense played hard, winning a lot of battles against the speedy St. George attacking offense.
The most important thing about this league is having fun, but also developing skills that could be useful within the UTM women’s varsity Eagles soccer team that plays in the OCAA. The intramural league is named the D-league because some of the women who play are looking to enhance their skills in hopes of moving up to the varsity team, while others see playing for this team as an opportunity to stay in shape and have fun playing with a collective of other likeminded student athletes: “They’re still developing, and this league is more about getting them to where they need to be in terms of working as a team,” says coach Heather McNeil.
“The fact that they never get discouraged is special. The score could be six to nothing and the girls would cheer if they get a shot on net. You’ll never watch one of their games and think that they were losing based off of their attitude towards each other,” says coach Prabjot Bal.
With only one game remaining on the schedule, the coaches still expect the women to show up and work hard. As the season has progressed, the women have developed relationships and chemistry that has made them a better team. Unfortunately, other teams have developed that same chemistry as well, so the results haven’t been getting better.
The women look to take on the St. George Red team in their final game of the season next Sunday, November 6 at 10:00 a.m.
