Valley U-18 girls will do their best at nationals, says coach

BY JOHN DECOSTE

jdecoste@kentvilleadvertiser.ca

NovaNewsNow.com

The first-ever Valley girls’ soccer team to qualify for a national championship is looking forward to the experience, says head coach Stephen McNeill.

The Valley United U-18 girls leave Wednesday for Vaughan, Ont. (near Toronto, and the site of the Soccer Canada National Training Centre) to represent Nova Scotia at nationals.

McNeill said in an interview that the girls are ready to do their best and ensure, win or lose, that their appearance on the national stage is a positive one.

Last year’s Nova Scotia representative at U-18 nationals, Scotia, ended up with a ninth-place finish. McNeill would like to see his team do better than that.

At the same time, with players spread throughout the eastern Valley and at least four team members attending university outside the area, “we haven’t been able to practice together as a team as much as we’d like since winning provincials (in late August).”

The girls “have been practicing Sunday evenings because that’s the time the most of us are available.” They have had one game against the Acadia women’s team – it ended in a 1-1 draw and, according to McNeill, “we managed to control most of the play” – with another game between the two scheduled for Monday evening at Acadia.

“During the season, we practiced three times a week and usually played at least once a week.” In contrast, “we’ve gotten together four times in the past six weeks, and we’ve only played once on a full field, the game at Acadia.

“There just aren’t a lot of teams at our level we can play,” McNeill said. “We’re not even close to where we were six weeks ago, but we’ll be out to do the best we can. We’d like to be more ready, but everyone there is likely to be more or less in the same boat as us.”

Traveling to nationals is an expensive proposition for any team and the U-18 girls “have been doing everything under the sun” to try and raise the necessary funds, including raffles, canvassing, personal donations and marshaling an ATV rally in Greenwood.

As of this week, the team was “still a little short of our goal,” but was hoping for a good return from an auction Friday evening in Coldbrook, their single largest fundraiser.

“A lot of local businesses donated auction items instead of taking out ads,” McNeill said.

The U-18 girls went through the NSSL regular season with 15 wins, three draws and one loss (in their second last game of the season), then went undefeated in the playoffs, defeating Dunbrack in the final to win the provincial championship.