Capers shutout REDS 2-0 to capture 13th AUS women's soccer crown
ANTIGONISH, NS – The Cape Breton University (CBU) Capers capped off an undefeated conference regular season and playoffs with a hard fought, yet convincing, 2-0 victory over the UNB REDS on Sunday afternoon in the title match of the 2024 Atlantic University Sport (AUS) Women's Soccer Championship, presented by Bell, at STFX Stadium.
It is the 13th conference banner for the Capers - all under the leadership of veteran head coach Stephen 'Ness' Timmons.
With the triumph, the Capers punched their ticket to the 2024 U SPORTS Women's Soccer Championship tournament, which will be hosted by the Dalhousie Tigers – from Thursday, Nov. 7 to Sunday, Nov. 10 – at Wickwire Field in Halifax.
In an intense first half, the sides jockeyed for position and possession in the opening 15 minutes.
The REDS enjoyed an offensive spurt in the following five minutes or so; one highlighted by a pair of corner-kick opportunities that were thwarted by a rock solid Capers' defense to keep it scoreless.
CBU – the top seed in the six-team weekend playoffs – responded offensively and were rewarded when three-time conference and 2024 championship MVP Alliyah Rowe (Kitchener, ON), showing her playmaking ability, crossed a left-footed pass to Lauren Rowe (Conception Bay South, NL), the CBU player of the match, who tucked in the ball from in tight behind diving UNB keeper Breanna Habinski (Welland, ON), with what turned out to be the winning tally, to make it 1-0.
With the REDS searching for the equalizer – in the 30th minute – striker Jillian Larose (Ottawa, ON) fed a sensational diagonal through ball to Eva Pavlov (Bedford, NS), who got behind the Capers' defenders, but her cross to a teammate was gobbled up by CBU keeper Ellie Lancaster (Fall River, NS), who stretched out to intercept the feed.
In the 36th, Lauren Rowe - off the steal of an errant pass from the UNB back-line – darted in and laced a strike, but Habinski stoned the CBU forward. On the rebound, from even tighter quarters, the keeper made an even better stop to keep her side within one goal.
After making a great run down the wing to collect a ball before it went out to touch, Jillian Curtis (Corpus Christi, TX) left-footed a pass to Pavlov, whose re-direction bounced wide of the near post behind Lancaster.
The Capers led 1-0 heading to the locker room.
In the second half, Lauren Rowe collected the first quality scoring opportunity, making a run and splitting a pair of UNB defenders – after taking a nifty feed from Grace Hannaford (Enfield, NS) – but Habinski – the REDS' player of the championship match – stymied Lauren Rowe, once again, by getting her left hand on a hard high shot to keep it 1-0 for CBU.
In the 60th minute, after Alliyah Rowe won a battle for possession, she led a rush before deftly flicking a pass to the wing with the outside of her left foot that Paige Allaby (Rothesay, NB) collected before crossing a bounding ball that found Hannaford on the far side of the 18-yard box. The third-leading scorer in the AUS regular season smartly settled it and then laced a low shot inside the far goal post to provide an insurance marker and double the CBU edge to 2-0.
A few minutes later, UNB tried to answer but Julia Currie (Sydney, NS), who did not get the volley she wanted, could not solve Lancaster.
With the REDS pushing forward to try to carve into the deficit, in the 78th minute, Lauren Rowe got loose on the counterattack, but she sailed a left-footed strike high and wide behind Habinski. Seconds later, she charged in on the UNB keeper, but the dynamic forward angled a left-footer out to touch.
The Capers, who only surrendered 10 goals during the AUS regular season, put up a brick wall defensively down the stretch to secure the championship-winning shutout. UNB garnered a couple of corner kicks in stoppage time, but they came up empty.
At nationals, CBU will be vying for the second Canadian university women's soccer crown in university history.
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Recap courtesy Corey LeBlanc