Tigers win tight home opener

Arfa Ayub, Sports Contributor 

The crowd of around 300 people watched as the Dalhousie Tigers 2010/2011 women’s soccer team opened the new season with a 2-0 victory over the Acadia Axewomen. The first half of the game was physical one.

“As physical games go it was in the middle of the pack, we don’t mind that,” said Jack Hutchison, the Tigers head coach. The game overall was a close one but the Tigers held a little bit of an edge.

“I think it was a good start to the season. It’s always good to have a win first off, but we still have a long way to go and no goals against was great” said co-captain Jeanette Huck.

Huck had one of the goals in the 2-0 victory, scoring in the fifteenth minute. Acadia goalkeeper Leisha Doyle came out of her net to make herself bigger, but Huck shot the ball, with a strong finish, before the Acadian keeper had any chance of saving. When asked what was on her mind when she scored the first goal of the season Huck laughed and replied “I don’t know, I was happy” Huck would later be named the player of the game.

Both of the goals scored by the Tigers came in the first half of the game. The second goal was by Emma Landry, five minutes after Huck’s goal. Landry took advantage of a mistake made by the Acadia goalkeeper, as Doyle meant to pass the ball to one of her teammates but instead passed the ball to Landry. Landry shot the ball before she had a chance to recover, and all of a sudden it was 2-0 for the Tigers.

The only bad news for the Tigers came in the first half when Reika Santilli, another co-captain, went down with a leg injury. “She will end up going for X-rays. It’s not an ankle: it is the shin. If it was bone on bone, there will be a little bit of pain. We just have to wait now to see what the X-Rays say and hope it’s not broken,” Hutchison said after the game.

“Reika is a great player. She is one of the three captains on the team so it’s horrible to see someone with such a big influence on the team go down. It did affect us, but we had other players step up and hopefully she’ll come back and be fine,” said Huck.

The second half of the game was slower paced.

“Good start. Really, really pleased we didn’t allow any goals. Very good first half, but mentally I thought we lost a little bit in the second. In the second half we allowed them to play a little bit too much, didn’t keep the pressure the way we wanted to,” said Hutchison.

The constant weather change from rain to sun to rain back to sun again was not a problem for the Tigers. “A little wind is always difficult because it’s hard to get the ball where you want it to go but it wasn’t that bad and we have played through much worse so it was all right,” said Huck.

Match Stats

Dalhousie-Goals-Cards

McKenna-0
Santilli-0
Henry-0
Crewe-0
Hardy-0
Mitchell-0
O’Reilly-0
Wallace-0
MacDonald-0
Landry-1
Huck-1
Richard (Landry 21’)-0
McKilligan (Santilli 40’)-0
Blodgett (MacDonald)-0

Acadia-Goals-Cards

Doyle-0
Hache-0
Fry-0
Reid (Fry)-0
Rayner (Fry)-0
Matheson (Hache)-0

Unofficial Match Stats

Shots: DAL-4; ACA-1
Attempts: DAL-5; ACA-4
Fouls: DAL-7; ACA-3
Cautions: DAL-0; ACA-0
Ejections: DAL-0; ACA-0
Offsides: DAL-4; ACA-0
Corners: DAL-0; ACA-3