On the DL with Dot - Weekend Report
We started off our first weekend in London with a game against western at 10 am on Saturday. We immediately established dominance over our opposition when Ontario rookie Ally Evanshen put away a beautiful goal early in the game. Western came back strong and created a corner opportunity. Sam Lyzun in goal made a great save off the initial shot but the Western forwards were able to scoop up the rebound to tie up the game. The Blues had a quick response when B.C. rookie Alex Thicke scored, not letting the Mustangs gain any momentum. After another solid half of play we ended the game with a score of 2-1-our first win of the season! Although we dominated the game the score didn’t reflect the game play as we had some difficulties converting our scoring opportunities.
After some recovery time during the day, we prepared to take on the York Lions that evening. We started off the game a little shaky as we failed to follow through with the set game plan discussed in the pre-game meeting. Thankfully Ally Evanshyn was able to put away a great ball across the offensive circle from Kyesia O’Neale, for her second goal of the weekend. Despite this we still were letting their centre midfield player walk through our defence. After an intense half-time talk from Coach John DeSouza, we picked up our game in the second half and ended the game with a 3-0 win with goals from Natty P and Alex Thicke.
On Sunday we finished off our weekend in London with a game against Queen’s. Even though they a caught us a little bit off guard in the first 5 minutes we managed to gain our composure and structure back quickly. Our offensive corner unit got lots of practice in the first half as the forwards and midfielders drove the ball into the circle, creating lots of penalty calls. Kaelan Watson killed it from the battery position on the corner unit as she pounded away our only 2 goals in the first half off short corner plays. Kaelan put away 2 more goals in the second half (to bring herself to a total of 4 goals this game) and Emily Roy and Angela Jennings added a goal each late in the second half. Despite having some difficulties maintaining our structure and using our tactics we have been working on, we came out of the game with a 6-0 win.
Because of our results this weekend we are now tied for first place in the OUA with the Guelph Gryphons - each of us having 9 points. It was made clear this weekend that they will be our main competition in the OUA this year as they recorded scores of 4-1 vs. Western, 9-1 vs. Waterloo and 10-0 vs. Queens. This week we’ll continue practices and our training runs with Ivan to get ready for our trip to Ottawa this weekend where we will be playing Waterloo and Carleton!
And that’s the “down low” from your varsity blues field hockey team.
Dot
