Steel hosting the Rage today at 1 p.m.

After opening their season with a neutral site game, the Lethbridge Steel women’s football team hits the gridiron for their Western Women's Canadian Football League home opener this afternoon.

The Steel face the Calgary Rage at 1 p.m. today at the University of Lethbridge Stadium in a rematch of the two teams’ season-opener April 29 in Medicine Hat, where the Rage earned a 25-21 win.

“I think the girls are pretty excited for the home-opener,” said Steel head coach Justin Tillery. “We’ve been working hard. We came out of the last one with a couple of injuries, but we’ve rested up and they’ve been taking care of themselves.”

The Steel look to improve to 1-1 on the season and salvage a split with the Rage this afternoon following the close loss in Medicine Hat.

“It went pretty well,” said Tillery. “For the players we had it was a really good game. Obvioulsy, there were some kinks that we had to work out, but we battled right to the end. So I was quite proud of our team and even the result.

“All the new players did really well, I was quite impressed with all of them. I’m sure there were some nerves going on, but they stuck it out.”

Preparing for the rematch, the past two weeks have been focused on conditioning and mental preparedness, said Tillery.

“I think late in the game we could see the gas tank emptying a little bit. So we’ve been working on that over the past few weeks and trying to eliminate the small mistakes we made during our first game.”

After today’s game, the Steel are in Edmonton next Saturday to face the Edmonton Storm and return to the U of L Stadium for the rematch against the Storm June 3 at 2 p.m.