Kodiaks earn first futsal medal

After missing the soccer playoffs in the outdoor season last fall, the Lethbridge Kodiaks took it indoors last weekend and got better results.

The Kodiaks women’s futsal team headed to Lloydminster for the Alberta Colleges Athletic Conference provincials — hosted by Lakeland College — and came home with a silver medal.

The Kodiaks — joined by the men’s futsal team in Lloydminster — advanced to the gold medal game Sunday, but were defeated 3-0 by the Medicine Hat Rattlers who won their fifth straight ACAC championship.

The silver for the Kodiaks comes in the second year of participation in futsal for Lethbridge and is the first futsal medal in the college’s history.

The Kodiaks went 1-2 in round-robin to make the playoff round. They lost their opener 43 to the Rattlers, but rebounded with a 4-1 win over the Ambrose Lions.

The Kodiaks lost their final round-robin game to the Keyano Huskies, but earned a berth in the playoffs on a tiebreaker.

In the Sunday semifinal against the Augustana Vikings, third-year Kodiak Vicki Noronha scored early and that was all the offence the Kodiaks needed for a 1-0 win that guaranteed the team their first futsal medal.

In the gold medal game, the Rattlers scored once in the first half and twice more in the second to secure the gold medal.

The men’s team went 0-3 in the round-robin — losing two of their games by one goal — and didn’t qualify for the playoffs.