After being blanked 1-0 by Memorial University, the Dalhousie women’s soccer Atlantic University Sport (AUS) season has concluded, but hosting the U SPORTS Women’s Soccer Championship means the Tigers still have a shot at bringing home some hardware.
The Tigers’ AUS season concluded after Memorial’s Zoe Rowe, the second leading goalscorer in the league scored in the 58th minute.
Despite the quarterfinal exit, head coach Cindy Tye doesn’t look back on the year as a failure.
“Of course you always want to get the result,” Tye said. “But I think we grew as a group from beginning to end.”
Dalhousie finished fifth in a tight AUS where the third team in the league was only separated from the sixth-placed team by three points. The Tigers had three members named to AUS all-star teams, with Elise Evans being selected to the first team and Olivia Jack and Hannah Firstbrook being awarded with second team honours. Evans finished fifth in the league, scoring five goals, while teammate Taylor Heard wasn’t far away, ending the season with four goals.
Bounce back for nationals
Dalhousie is now in an unusual position where they must bounce back quickly from their quarterfinal loss, because from Nov. 7-10, the Tigers will be hosting nationals.
Evans recognizes the quick turnaround they have but wants to put the Memorial loss in the past. She has seen that throughout the season the team is able to handle the ups and downs of a university season.
“I think after that loss,” Evans said, “there’s the idea that we have nothing to lose and everything to gain from our nationals experience.”
The past can be an example for the Tigers heading into nationals as more recently the host of these events have had some surprising success. In men’s basketball, Dalhousie matches the story of Laval University who won the 2024 Men’s Basketball Final 8 after losing in the Ontario University Athletics quarterfinal. Looking closer to home, the University of New Brunswick made it all the way to the final of the AUS men’s soccer championship as the host.
Tye views hosting the 2024 U SPORTS Women’s Soccer Championship as an opportunity for an extension on their season and said her and the team have been using their time to study the other universities as they go through their respective playoffs.
2024 AUS season
The Tigers were forced into uncomfortable situations early in their season as head coach Tye missed the second half of their pre-season and an early section of their regular season. This was because Tye was the head coach of the Canada’s women’s team in the U-20 Fifa World Cup.
Evans credited the assistant coaches for being able to step up for the moment.
“It’s not that it was an issue,” Evans said “But it was definitely different.”
Dalhousie was able to make it work and after the month of September the team had a record of three wins, three losses and a tie.
While the team had players like Evans who were returning for their upperclassmen seasons, Evans said the team was younger than previous seasons and credited players in their first or second year who were able to make a difference.
The Tigers finished the season with a 5-4-3 record which set up the game against Memorial. Now that she has had a few days to reflect on the match, though she said the team needed to be better in their own box, Tye was proud of how her squad played.
“Just felt like we played really well,” Tye said. “Tough result, but I feel the kids executed what they could.”
Evans, who was named to second-team all star AUS in her first season, said this year, the difference was her level of fitness. This is something she credited to strength and conditioning coach Brett Armstrong.
Another major difference for Evans was in her past years she hadn’t played as much during her off-season, but this year the Tigers put a squad into the Nova Scotia Soccer League where Evans scored the second-most goals across the league.
“It’s really just being around a group of very hardworking and supporting teammates,” Evans said.
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