Courtesy: Fort McMurray Today


Men take gold, women take bronze as Huskies capture futsal medals

by Trevor Howlett

Keyano College soccer players headed to Olds on the weekend in pursuit of ACAC futsal medals and both teams accomplished their goals as the women’s Huskies Futsal team captured the bronze medal and the men’s team won the ACAC championship and gold medal.

The men’s Huskies futsal team defeated the Lakeland Rustlers 5-1 to win gold Sunday afternoon, the first time any Keyano team has won a team championship in the Alberta Colleges Athletic Conference.

“They deserve it, hands down they deserve it,” said head coach Connor Brady. “These guys put in a lot of work. I’m crazy proud of these guys, proud to be a part of this team. I’ve been on a lot of championship teams but this goes heads and tails above being on a team, these guys are a family.”

Keyano opened their tournament with a 7-2 win against Red Deer, improving their record to 11-0. However, on the second game of the tournament the Huskies tied Medicine Hat 2-2, the first time the Huskies men’s team had failed to win a game in futsal this season. Brady thinks that game helped the Huskies refocus and realize they weren’t invincible.

“We stressed that we’re not unbeatable and these are good teams we’re playing,” said Brady.

“When you make mistakes or you don’t play your best, they will beat you. Medicine Hat are a really young team, they are a pure class program and they gave everything they had.”

Alex Eby had four goals for the Huskies in the gold medal game and the other marker came from Santiago Raigoza. The other Huskies getting gold were Jonathon Cordoba, Marcos Betoili, Yves-Florent Pokou, Will Sedonick-Carriere and Vahan Ercoban. With a strong core of players returning for next season, Brady is confident he’ll have one of the best soccer teams in the ACAC come autumn.

“This group of guys are excited for next year, excited for September,” said Brady. “Over half the guys coming in will be new players over the summer that we’re excited to welcome into the program. I think in September we’ll be one of the teams to beat.”

The women’s Huskies also brought home a medal, repeating their performance from last season to get the ACAC bronze. The Huskies bested Red Deer College 2-1 Sunday afternoon.

Both goals came from Rebecca Gerrits and goaltender Lisa Harrison stood on her head to help lead the team to victory.

“We came down with a few injuries and a few little rough patches and we kind of got away from our gameplan during the round robin,” said Huskies women’s futsal coach Michael Hull.

“I just talked to the girls before the game and told them we’ve beat this team. We need to stick to the gameplan. We made a few adjustments and the girls played amazing. They did everything that I asked of them.”

The women’s Huskies started their provincial tournament with a 4-0 loss to Lakeland followed by a 3-0 loss to Medicine hat and a 4-0 loss to Red Deer.

In the end, the Huskies were able to get revenge, get the bronze and improve their overall play.

Hull pointed out that in the first tournament his team finished last, in the second futsal tournament his team finished fourth and now they are the third best team in the province, with improvement in every tournament.






Posted by Luca Ranocchiari --> luca.ranocchiari@futsalplanet.com