Penalty kicks sink MacGregor

Posted By Eric MacKenzie, Central Plains Herald-Leader

Posted 16 days ago

A disappointing finish at the Manitoba Provincial Rural High School Soccer Championships didn't put a damper on the excellent season put together by the MacGregor Collegiate Institute Mustangs boys' soccer team.

The Mustangs were eliminated from the provincial tournament, which ran Oct. 16-17 in Steinbach, with two-straight losses on penalty kicks.

However, the Mustangs were right in both contests while making their first appearance at provincials since 2004.

"We were definitely hoping for a better finish than we had," said Mustangs' head coach Corey May, whose team held the fifth seed in the 10-team draw. "But in our very first game against Winkler, we probably played the best we've played in five or six years."

The Zone 7-champion Mustangs faced Winkler's Garden Valley Zodiacs in their opening match, and grabbed a 1-0 lead five minutes in when Ryan Wiebe put away a crossing pass.

The fourth-seeded Zodiacs evened things up with about 10 minutes remaining in the first half, and the Mustangs started to focus on defence after that to try to limit Garden Valley forward Eduard Penner's chances.

"We decided to double-team him and play with five D in the second half," said May. "His chances were definitely decreased, so what we were trying to do worked, but, of course, that cuts down on your offensive opportunities as well."

Wiebe nearly put the game away with just three minutes to go, hammering a shot off the inside of the post and across the front of the goalmouth, but the teams remained deadlocked at the final whistle, and the Zodiacs advanced in the shootout.

That put the Mustangs into a consolation match-up with the Hamiota Huskies, which also ended 2-1 on penalty kicks.

"We put all of our energy into that first game, and we didn't have much of a break in between," said May, whose club only got to rest for a couple of hours before returning to the pitch. "Hamiota's a team that, on a normal day, we probably would have handled pretty easily, but we just didn't have it."

The Huskies grabbed a 1-0 lead less than two minutes into the game, walking their way into the Mustangs' end and converting a pass from the end line out front.

MacGregor keeper Trem Cleaver came through with a number of great stops, and kept his team in it for Myron Enns to finally net the equalizer with just three minutes to go in regulation.

"I moved him up to play centre-striker because we needed to get that push going forward," said May. "He got the ball just outside the 18, and pounded one off the crossbar and straight down."

The teams played a shortened overtime period due to darkness, and the ensuing penalty kicks again didn't go the Mustangs' way.

"We just didn't finish well on the penalty shots," said May. "The boys were disappointed after two straight losses, but you need to look back on the whole year, because it was a 12-3 season.

"It had been four years since we beat Neepawa, and we took them this year, which was a positive. It was the first time in four years we had been to provincials, so that's another positive. You have to look for all those things through your entire year, and not just focus on the loss at the end."

Cleaver's performance earned him a spot on the tournament's all-star team, a nice way for the Grade 12 keeper to finish off his high school playing days.

Although the Mustangs will lose Cleaver, Wiebe, Ronald Dyck, Linden Guenther and Darwin Driedger to graduation, May expects that his crew of returning players coupled with some new faces coming up should make up a solid squad for next year.

"We have a lot of good young players coming up, some Grade 9s who will be 10s next year that didn't make the team, but are definitely capable of playing at the high school level," he said. "We are losing a fair bit, but we should be probably as strong as we were this year. That's my hope."

sports@cpheraldleader.com