DAVID LARKINS, Wesmen Athletics
WINNIPEG — The Saskatchewan Huskies are looking forward to the post-season, while the Winnipeg Wesmen are looking forward to 2019.
The Huskies prevailed thanks to an own goal in the 54th minute, handing the Wesmen a 1-0 Canada West conference women's soccer loss at the Ralph Cantafio Soccer Complex.
The loss put the close on a season in which the Wesmen finished 0-10-4 and out of the conference post-season.
Madison Fordyce made eight saves and finished the season with a career-high 96, a total that led the Canada West conference and put her just outside the top 10 in conference history and third overall in program history.
The Wesmen honoured Tyler Johnson in a pre-game ceremony for her four years of service to the program with Johnson graduating and moving on from soccer after this season.
"As far as her character, I don't' think I've ever coached anyone so grounded, and she's such a team player," Wesmen head coach Amy Anderson said. "She's such a grounded young woman and she was such a pleasure to coach and I'll really miss her, for sure."
And while the Wesmen were closing up shop on 2018, they looked ahead to 2019 with the announcement of the first two members of the recruiting class in U of W Collegiate's McKaely Snider and River East Collegiate's Emma Friesen signing their letters of intent at a halftime ceremony.
The Huskies, meanwhile, are playoff bound and feeling positive after a road trip that resulted in six points off two wins. Saskatchewan handled Manitoba 3-0 on Friday night as a prelude to its victory on Saturday.
"We have a young group and have played some very, very good football and almost haven't gotten the results … even though we weren't playing well," head coach Jerson Barandica-Hamilton said. "I think this weekend we got a little bit rewarded for what we're doing. I thought tonight we weren't at our best, to be honest. This group is better than what we showed, but part of the learning curve is learning how to win games when maybe we aren't at our best, and we did that today."
Jadyn Steinhauer made six saves for her second clean sheet of the season for the Huskies.
Saskatchewan generated 16 shots with 10 on target, while Winnipeg had 11 shots, 10 on the mark.