Jefferson Hagen, MacEwan Athletics
REGINA – As their bus rolled across the Saskatchewan landscape, en route to Edmonton late Sunday afternoon, members of the MacEwan Griffins women's soccer team were anxiously refreshing their phones.
Would Alberta be able to hang on to a result against Saskatchewan?
It's a rare day when the Griffins cheer for the cross-town rival Pandas, but that's where they found themselves a couple hours after a 2-1 win over Regina moved them three points up on Saskatchewan for top spot in the Prairie Division. They needed the Huskies to lose or draw to stay there.
As they drove through tiny Lumsden, Sask., the boxscore went final at 2-2 – a result that locked them into the top seed for the first time in program history.
"Yesterday was a little bit of a wakeup call," said head coach Dean Cordeiro, whose group lost 2-1 at Saskatchewan to have their fate taken out of their hands when the Huskies drew even on points and held the head-to-head tiebreaker. "But we knew we needed to take care of business today and sure enough they played to a draw. We're a happy group right now."
MacEwan finishes atop the division with a 9-2-3 record to reach 30 points for the first time since joining Canada West in 2014. They're now in the pole position to host the conference championship if they can get past a quarter-final match next weekend that they'll also host.
"We checked our first box," said Cordeiro. "One of the goals we set with this team at the start of the year was we wanted to finish first in our side of the conference and have all roads go through MacEwan and play in front of our home fans.
"We know that there's a big advantage when you get to play at home with fan support and sleeping in our own beds. We wanted to control some of those factors. It's exciting. It's a program first to win our division."
MacEwan will meet the winner of Victoria (8-3-3) and Regina (3-7-3) – who will meet in a Play In game in Edmonton on Friday (2 p.m.) – in next Sunday's quarter-final (2 p.m., both games on Canada West TV, presented by Co-op).
Should they emerge out of that trio, they would host the Canada West Final Four on Nov. 1-2 at Clarke Stadium.
"I'll be honest, we're not looking to the final four," cautioned Cordeiro. "We've got to get back to business. We've got two very good teams to prep for in UVic and Regina. One step at a time.
"Our focus is on prepping for whoever we'll face on the Sunday and we'll worry about the rest afterwards. It's cool we know that's a possibility, but it's one step at a time and we've got to prepare for two very good sides."
MacEwan faced Regina on Sunday afternoon and needed a strong second-half effort to take the three points. Despite outshooting the Cougars 15-3 in the opening half (8-2 in shots on goal), they somehow found themselves down 1-0.
"We were a bit perplexed to be down 1-nil at the half," said Cordeiro, whose team endured a disallowed goal on a tough call for the second-straight day – this time when Suekiana Choucair's corner kick curled in but was waved off on a foul on the goalkeeper. "It was in the back of the players' heads – 'here we go again. Another disallowed goal.' "
Against the run of play the Cougars opened the scoring when Kyra Vibert tapped in a Brigit Sinaga cross in the 39th minute.
"It's not a position we want to be in, but we just regrouped at half-time," said Cordeiro. "We had a great start to the second half. Suek plays a perfectly weighted ball into the area that finds the head of Jamie Erickson and it falls to Meagan Lemoine, who squares the ball to Maya Morrell on a great finish.
"It made it 1-1 and from that point on we kind of really put it on them."
Morrell sent Salma Kamel in alone in the 74th minute and she made no mistake for her seventh goal of the season and fifth in the last five days after scoring four times against Mount Royal University last Tuesday. Morrell had two points as player of the match.
MacEwan finished with a narrow win but the dominant evidence: outshooting Regina 32-6 (18-2 in shots on goal) and 6-1 on corner kicks.
"Credit Regina, a well-organized, good side," said Cordeiro. "They made things difficult for us and it was a windy day, which is never ideal. But we did what we needed to do to put ourselves back in top spot and put the pressure back on Saskatchewan to have to win the game today. The result came that they didn't win the game. We're happy to be in that top spot."
Not only did MacEwan finish with the best record in the program's Canada West history, they also finished a program best second in most goals scored in the conference (35), second-least goals allowed (eight) and had the second-best goal differential (+27).
On the individual front, Suekiana Choucair wrapped up a career regular season ironwoman streak that might never be passed in MacEwan history, starting and playing in all 70 games in her career. Choucair, who finished the 2019 campaign with a team-high 13 points, shattered her own program record for most in a season, also setting a new standard for assists in a season with eight.
So, it's on to a home playoff weekend, and perhaps two.
"It's exciting," said Cordeiro of the program's benchmark campaign. "We're five years into this and to be where we are today is a testament to all the work that the staff, players and everybody in the athletic department have put in.
"For us to be in a situation where we can have home support, our local fans and just the community rallying around our team here is pretty unique and special."
