As reported by our club's "footie" enthusiast Keith Dinwoodie
 
While some of the younger members of our community were hurtling down 6th Avenue in Tsawwassen on Saturday, a large group of high school girls from across the region were battling it out on the soccer fields of South Delta Secondary. Sixteen teams began the Girls Triple-A Provincial Soccer (Football to some) Championships on Thursday, June 2nd including the South Delta Sun Devils and our own DOLL (Daughter On Long-term Loan), Mette.
 
 
By Friday night, just four teams remained in contention for a medal. Your humble scribe (OK, not so humble) and a few other members of our club "played hooky" and watched some of the games - with a large degree of admiration I might say. The conditions were dry enough - never a guarantee in these parts - but the heat was a different factor making the performance from all teams that much more impressive. The girls played hard and long and scored some impressive goals and all biases aside, the Sun Devils were certainly worthy of their 100% record at the end of the group play. They scored an impressive 16 goals and only conceded 2 over three matches on their way to the semi-finals.
 
 
On Friday afternoon, the Sun Devils played a heartbreaking game against the eventual gold medal winners, the Fleetwood Park Dragons. The Dragons are no slouches having come top of their West Zone group with an impressive record winning all seven games and outscoring their opponents by 27 to 2! By full time, neither side had scored which in no small way was due to two excellent goal keepers who each had to make key saves and did so very well.
 
On to extra time and still no goals and that meant the controversial solution - penalty kicks. It is important to note the the size of the goal at this level is the same for a 6 foot 5 inch professional goal keeper as it is for a 4 foot 6 inch high school player. Impressive doesn't begin to describe their agility and skill and neither girl could be blamed for what followed.
 
Sadly the Sun Devils came away on the wrong end of a 4 - 2 score so that the Dragons went on to the gold medal game against North Vancouver’s Wandsworth Royals, their third straight trip to the finals. The Sun Devils played the other semi-finalists, the Elgin Park Orcas for the bronze medal and were worthy winners scoring another impressive five goals with no reply.
 
 
Mette, like all of the Sun Devils team members, does take home a medal to remind her of a great effort by all of the girls. Although she won't be back next year, some of the team undoubtedly will including the sister of a certain Montreal Canadiens winger. Grade 9 student Breanne Gallagher, the sister of Brendan Gallagher played extremely well and I witnessed two fabulous goals from her in the second group stage game.
 
Not to inflate her ego too much you understand but do you know what our DOLL did as a "warm up" for the tournament? She took part in the school's triathlon on Wednesday and didn't she come in first in her grouping for that!
 
Well played Mette and all of the members of the Sun Devils team.
 
Thank you to Kathleen Beaton, Sherrie Jamieson and the South Delta Secondary School Facebook page for the pictures which helped to tell the story.