Cougars up against it to claim playoff berth
Numerous scenarios exist for the University of Regina Cougars women’s soccer team to make the Canada West playoffs.
All of them require the Cougars to take care of business this weekend in Winnipeg.
“First and foremost, we need to win a game or two,” Regina head coach Bob Maltman said Thursday. “I haven’t really looked at the various ramifications after that.
“We need to win one game for sure and get at least a tie in the other. Two wins put us in a better situation.”
The Cougars are to visit the Manitoba Bisons on Saturday and the Winnipeg Wesmen on Sunday.
Regina enters the final weekend of the regular season in seventh place with a 1-9-2 record and five points.
The Cougars are chasing the fifth-place Lethbridge Pronghorns (2-7-3 and nine points) and sixth-place Mount Royal Cougars (2-82 and eight points, entering Thursday’s game against the Calgary Dinos).
The top six teams qualify for the East Division playoffs, so Regina needs a win (worth three points) in either of its remaining two games to tie Mount Royal. Regina also needs Mount Royal to lose both of its final two games to stay within reach.
After facing secondplace Calgary (7-3-2) on Thursday, Mount Royal is to meet Lethbridge on Saturday. The Pronghorns are to conclude their regularseason schedule Sunday versus the third-place MacEwan Griffins (6-3-3).
“I’m for sure not going to be too interested in what they do because it can lead your mind different places,” Regina midfielder Kayla McDonald said. “But it’ll be good to know if we still have a chance.
“It’s going to make us work that much harder to get those six points this weekend.”
If Regina and Mount Royal finish the regular season tied, the first tiebreaker is the teams’ head-to-head record. They played to a 1-1 draw Sept. 27.
The factor that could end up breaking the tie is goals for and against. Entering play Thursday, Mount Royal had scored 13 goals and allowed 22; Regina goes into its weekend with six goals scored and 22 allowed.
As for Regina and the Pronghorns, they played to a scoreless tie on Sept. 20. Lethbridge has scored eight goals and allowed 24.
Maltman and the Cougars know they need help from other teams to make the playoffs, but the Cougars’ priority is to look after themselves.
“The girls are all smart enough to look at the standings and figure things out,” Maltman said. “We’ll chat a bit about (the various scenarios), but the first thing we have to do is get the group together and figure out what we’re doing on the pitch this weekend.
“We have no control over what other teams do. We can only control what we’re doing in these last two games.”
The Cougars lost control of their season by losing some games they should have won, but that’s in the past now. Their focus now is this weekend and the fact that they’re still in playoff contention.
“That’s what we’re hanging our hats on,” Maltman said. “We’re all tired of meeting on Monday and saying, ‘We have to do this to win.’ We don’t have any more time for that; it has to be done.
“Short term, winning this weekend gives us a chance to get a playoff berth. Intermediate term, if we get into the playoffs, we’ll be going in with a couple of wins under our belt.
“Long term, we’ll have something to use and motivate the players going into the off-season. Knowing they made the playoffs is a positive note to reflect on, but they’ll also know they have a lot of work to do to get more consistent.”