For the first time since winning a gold medal in 2009, the John Paul II Crusaders boys’ soccer team has brought back a medal from the provincial championships.
Competing at the 2A boys’ finals in Yorkton over the weekend, the Crusaders earned a silver medal after dropping a 4-0 affair to the Humboldt Mohawks.
“It was a bit of a roller coaster year for us, so to end the year on a high note felt really good,” Crusaders head coach Shalen Fox said.
“It was one of those weekends where any of the eight teams that were there could win. We were the third seed and Humboldt was the fourth seed, but it felt like anything could happen no matter who was playing.”
In the championship game, the Crusaders were down 1-0 early on but had to play with nine players for most of the contest after two members of the team were sent off by the referee.
“We had a call that didn’t go our way and our guys questioned it a little bit too hard,” Fox said. “That was a situation where we probably should have kept our emotions more in check and that’s something we can learn from as we go forward.
“Overall though, I think the game was a lot closer than the 4-0 score. We regrouped well and had a number of chances despite being down a couple of players, but when you are pushing up the field you leave yourself more vulnerable on defence to the other team’s offensive attacks.”
The Crusaders started off the provincial tournament with a wild 6-5 win over the Notre Dame Hounds of Wilcox Friday in the quarter-final, as they rebounded from blowing a four-goal lead to win the penalty shootout 3-1.
“Other than the last 10 minutes of the second half, that game really set the tone for our weekend,” Fox said. “We had a 5-1 lead but once Notre Dame scored that first goal to start the comeback, it pretty much started a snowball effect.
“That was our first penalty shootout of the season, but we had some practice with it ahead of time. I asked who wanted to shoot and a lot of the guys were really confident, which we saw with three out of the four players scoring for us.”
In the semifinal, the Crusaders turned in one of their best performance of the season Friday as they cruised to a 6-0 triumph over the Sheldon Williams Spartans of Regina.
“We dominated that game right from the start,” Fox said. “We came out focused and we wanted to make sure that we didn’t let any leads slip away like we had earlier in the day.
“We were able to use our depth well against them. We had a lot of fresh legs on our bench that we rotated around and that allowed us to play a physical style of play that suits us really well.”
The Crusaders were one of four area teams that took part in the provincial finals over the weekend.
In Martensville, Chief Little Pine took home the consolation honours in the girls’ 1A tournament Saturday after picking up a 4-1 win over the host Royals.
The Maymont Panthers also competed in the event but were knocked out of the consolation round by the Royals in a 6-1 affair Friday.
In Middle Lake, North Battleford’s Sakewew High School lost the consolation final to Ahtahkakoop Saturday by a score of 3-2.
That game was a rematch of the regional final that took place in North Battleford a week earlier, which Ahtahkakoop won in a thrilling 5-4 contest.
