(MONCTON, N.B.) – The StFX X-Women, thanks to a Mary MacDonald goal in the 88th minute, defeated the UNB Varsity Reds 1-0 in quarter-final action of the Subway AUS Women's Soccer Championship Thursday evening at Moncton Stadium.
The Subway player of the game, MacDonald, a fourth-year forward from Kingston, Ont. raced into the UNB zone as Varsity Reds keeper Sami-Jo Bell came out to try to play the ball. MacDonald beat her to it just outside the 18 yard box and chipped the ball up and over Small, on target, and into the open UNB net.
The goal came with two minutes left in regulation time to give the No. 5-seeded X-Women the victory over the No. 4-seeded Varsity Reds. Both teams exchanged several key scoring chances throughout the game and were preparing for overtime prior to the MacDonald goal.
X-Women head coach Graham Kennedy commented, "We started the game with some great energy, but I thought that defensively we were a little bit disorganized and made some poor decisions in the first half. During the halftime talk we made some changes and sorted out some of our issues with our defensive shape."
"In the second half our defensive organization was very good and it was hard for UNB to penetrate, and they had to resort to playing long balls over the top which we dealt with fairly effectively," continued Kennedy. "We caught them on the counter a couple times and had some other opportunities where we could have scored. It was a typical AUS playoff game, tight right to the very end and whoever makes the first big mistake loses."
UNB had two good scoring chances in the first half of the game. One was off a corner kick as the ball was headed around in front of the StFX net but stayed out. Another opportunity saw them hit the cross bar.
Second year midfielder Chloe Brennan (Brookside, N.S.) had two good chances for StFX in the opening half, ringing one off the cross bar and another shot from in close that went off a V-Reds defender.
Both squads had second half scoring chances as well. The Varsity Reds outshot the X-Women 11-5 in the game. They were pressuring late in the second half, including back-to-back corner kicks but couldn't connect for a goal.
Small had three saves in the UNB net while X-Women goalkeeper Nicole MacDonald (Kanata, Ont.) had five saves.
Coach Kennedy said, "I thought that Mary MacDonald, Brittany Parks and Olivia Czipf in particular were outstanding today. In the second half I have to give credit to everybody, our defending was stellar, and we're really happy with the win."
The X-Women advance to play in the Subway AUS semifinal game on Friday at 5 p.m. against the top-seeded Acadia Axewomen. The No. 2-seeded Cape Breton Capers will meet the No. 3 Memorial Sea-Hawks in the other semifinal.
The championship game is slated for Sunday at 2 p.m.
All games of the championship are being broadcast live on Bell Aliant's FibreOP TV1 on channels 1 and 401. They are also available via webcast at www.AUStv.ca.
Source: StFX Sports Communications