After a clean, sweet 2-0 victory in Chilliwack last weekend, our incredible troupe of Sunshine Coast Storm U15 girls were in North Vancouver playing the NSG Lightning at the beautiful Sunderland Avenue turf this past Sunday. As the game opened up it became clear to the girls, the fans and our coaches: the turf surface was going to make this a rather fast, bouncy game that our girls simply are not used to, as grass and turf are two completely different animals using the same ball.
Both teams ran as hard as they could in this match as the ball bounced over everyone and was passed too far out front for any real coordinated teamwork to happen. As the Lightning were the first to the ball far too many times, it made our determined Storm girls rally and react with grit and determination to give them a tough time. There were some great passing moments and the speed some of the Storm girls pulled out of their hats annoyed the Lightning to no end and pushed this game through the first half scoreless.
The second half saw a little more vocal work from the Storm, warning of rear attacks and asking for passes, which forced the Lightning to double their efforts to get the best of the Storm. With some beautiful fight and determination in the mid-field and strong forward striker work, the Storm saw some great shots on net. This flurry of activity should have put us on the winning side of this game, but the North Van keeper was very skilled and made sure the efforts had no rewards.
The game ended in a 0-0 draw and the Storm coaches wondering how to get the girls to play right from the beginning of the game like they do in the end. These girls have what it takes to beat the best; they know what it means to play clever and hard and to run like the wind – now they need to decide before each game how to bring that out of each other and be as dangerous as they can, because when they do, as the previous games have shown, it’s awesome to see.
