Wilfrid Laurier’s co-ed soccer team ended their season on a disappointing note at the University of Toronto-Mississauga. Overall this team fought all season through player changes but the team refused to use that as an excuse for the shortcomings.
The Golden Hawks started their first game with more of a defensive mindset, thinking that they can defend well and try to score on the counter attack. Unfortunately for the Golden Hawks the game plan did not work. A couple bounces went the wrong way and this meant that Laurier went down two goals early. The Golden Hawks dropped their first game of the tournament 2-1.
The second game wasn’t much better for them; they had a disaster start allowing three quick goals within the first five minutes of the game. Laurier tried to regroup and cut the lead to 3-1. This forced Laurier to start taking more chances and they couldn’t capitalize, resulting in Laurier dropping their second game 4-1.
After the game the team came together and had a discussion about how to regroup and try to salvage their final tournament. They wanted to focus on playing smarter and more as team. In the third game everything started to come together nicely for the team. Passes were making their mark, they were communicating on defense and they knew when to take their chances offensively. When all of that came together the Laurier team responded with a 5-0 win.
This was too little too late for the Golden Hawks because they were eliminated from the championship bracket. Chris Caldaroni talked about doing more earlier on in the tournament. “I wish we played like that in our second game to give us more of a chance to advance, but it doesn’t take away from how we played in our third game.”
Laurier had to play one more game but the energy was drained from the team and they fell 2-1 as the banged up squad fought through minor injuries.
Owen Drake did a great job stepping into the lineup as a call up for the tournament playing well.
Looking forward to next year, the team agreed that preparation was important in order to be successful next year and the team felt that nothing should be taken away from how the team played this year.
Caldaroni feels that this year was a good stepping stone because it helped establish a good foundation for soccer at Laurier Brantford. “This team was very talented but I still think that we were snake bitten at times. It seemed like we never had bounces or calls go our way this year,” Chris Caldaroni says.
