It’s a soccer bonanza for Waterloo Region
Visits to Vaughan ended in Ontario Cup soccer victories for three of four Waterloo Region teams over the last two weekends.
For the Woolwich Wolfpack, victory came via a penalty shootout winning kick by Calysta Azzarello to beat Glen Shields FC 3-2 on Sunday at the Ontario Soccer Centre stadium.
“I’m very proud of them,” Woolwich coach John Tsilogianis said of a team that has now won three Ontario Cup age-group titles in four years. “I think it just shows how a small centre can accomplish anything.”
Madison McGregor, off a feed from Azzarello, and Logan Todtz with the tying goal in the 75th minute scored for the Wolfpack while Tyanna Ventura and Rebecca Kim added the other penalty kick goals.
For the Kitchener girls under-15 Academy team, a rubbermatch 5-0 rout of league rival Sarnia Spirit last week set the club on course for the Canadian championship starting Oct. 4 in Calgary.
And for the Waterloo United under-14 boys, a 1-0 triumph over the Weston Wolves was also bittersweet given the probable impending departure of much-admired coach Ralph Mackie. He is leaning toward moving on after leading this group of boys for the last six years.
The structure of the sport means league play can continue in parallel to Cup activity, so Waterloo’s under-14 boys still had unfinished business after last Saturday’s provincial win. The next day, another victory clinched the league title for United, an applicable moniker for a team that went 35-5-2 (won-lost-draw) overall.
“It was an emotional day,” Mackie said. “I got choked up. I don’t plan to get out completely but ... in all sports, people talk about the locker-room and they can be dysfunctional, but in our room we really care about each other. We have such a great culture here, a great group of parents.”
The Mackie family, including Ralph’s wife Leah, the team manager, brother Peter, a staff member with the Waterloo Minor Soccer Club, and nephew Stuart, are fixtures locally in soccer. If he does move on, Ralph will be missed.
“It would be a big loss if he leaves because he understands the game very well and gets everyone to play at the highest level,” said Ank Nibogora, the team’s leading scorer, who set up Bawi Bik Lian for the only goal of the game against Weston.
Meanwhile, the Kitchener Academy girls’ under-15 season continues with nationals — and a league first-place tiebreaker game against, who else, Sarnia — still on the horizon later this month before the Canadian title tournament.
But the Ontario Cup blowout win represented one of those sporting moments when a confident team goes into a big game knowing it had prepared to the best of its potential and, barring unforeseen circumstances, felt it would win.
Even against a strong rival like Sarnia, which had beaten Kitchener 3-0 earlier in the season while going 1-1-1 against Academy in 2017.
“The difference was our preparation and our defending,” said Kitchener coach Luis Kroeker. “We knew what we were up against but we worked on preventing shots, and offensively on our own finishing. We definitely felt good going into the game.”
Maxeen Sieczkowski with two, Lexi Kroeker, Sasha Marikano and Megan Hayes scored the Kitchener goals.
Finishing was an issue for the Waterloo United under-16 boys in a 3-0 loss to Woodbridge on Saturday. It was a tactical match that saw Woodbridge score late in the first half to take a 1-0 lead into intermission. The winners added two late goals, in the 84th and 90th minutes.
“The game played out exactly as I expected,” said Waterloo coach Jim Anderson, whose team won two straight league titles until this year and lost in the Ontario Cup final for the second straight season. “We had our chances, but they finished on theirs and we squandered ours, and it’s hard to win if you don’t score. We just didn’t put them on their back foot.”