U15 Chatham Strikers Earn Silver In Challenge Cup
Chatham Strikers U15 soccer team captured silver in the Challenge Cup – Contributed Photo
Facing the Oakridge Storm, Chatham battled hard from the opening kick off and had numerous good scoring chances throughout the game to attempt to win in regulation time. However, they could not get a shot past the Oakridge goalie and the game ended in a 0-0 tie and had to go directly to penalty kicks to decide the winner, and see who would advance to Sunday’s Semi-finals.
Chatham shot 1st and Ceara Travis scored to put Chatham up by 1, Oakridge then hit the crossbar and Chatham’s next shooter, Allyson Huckle buried her shot to put Chatham up 2. Goalie Brooke Foster saved Oakridge’s next shooter but Chatham’s next shooter hit the post. Oakridge scored next to close to 2 – 1 and Chatham’s 4th shooter missed to open the door for Oakridge. Their shooter scored to tie the pks at 2 each. Chatham’s 5th shooter, Brianna Dawson buried a hard drive to put Chatham up 3 – 2, but Oakridge scored again to tie it at 3 each. The Striker’s 6th shooter Rosina Cowan calmly fired home her shot (her 1st goal of the season) to give Chatham back the lead, and Brooke Foster stepped up huge to save the next Oakridge shooter giving Chatham the 4-3 shootout victory.
The Chatham Strikers would now play in the Semi-finals on Sunday morning against the Bryon Blaze who were in 3rd place in the league standings just behind Chatham. Again, Chatham played a strong game and battled hard throughout. But once again, they struggled to find the back of the net. Despite a couple of great chances, a shot off the crossbar and a near miss breakaway, Chatham was running out of time and looked to be headed to another penalty shootout. Finally, and in dramatic fashion, Jayden Malott-VanDusen used her blazing speed to chase down a long ball that was sent towards the Byron goal by Kristen Calabrese. The Byron goalie was out of the 18 yard box when she got to the ball 1st, but Jayden was on top of her before she could clear the ball and it was blocked by Malott-VanDusen back towards the Bryon net. Malott-VanDusen out raced 2 Byron defenders and buried the ball into the empty net to give Chatham a 1 – 0 victory and a trip to the finals later that afternoon. Chatham’s defence once again played strong in front of Brooke Foster, helping her earn her 2nd straight shut-out.
Chatham was tired and banged up going into the finals against 1st place Ilderton who were lucky in drawing a Bye on Saturday and having only play 1 game to reach the finals and that was against a weak team on Sunday morning, so they were fresh and well rested. Chatham had the hard path to the final and earned it with their blood, sweat and tears.
Chatham had yet to beat Ilderton this year in 3 attempts, but were hoping this would be the perfect time to upset the already crowned league Champs. The game was very physical as Ilderton were a strong aggressive team that looked and played more like a rugby team than soccer team. Chatham battled hard but 18 minutes into the 1st half Ilderton took advantage of a partial breakaway to go up 1 – 0. Chatham looked like they were about to tie the game when Alissa Burd was chasing down a ball and found herself alone, racing in on goal when the Ilderton goalie charged out of the box and took out Burd drawing a foul and a red card. Ilderton was now down a player and were without their starting goalie for the rest of the game. The half ended with Chatham just putting the ensuing free kick over the net and still down 1 – 0 .
The Strikers controlled most of the 2nd half benefiting from being up an extra player and had Ilderton backing up the entire half and panicking and booting the ball out of bounds every chance they could . Chatham had shot after shot at the Ilderton goal, but none managed to find it’s target or elude the Ilderton back up goalie. With the half winding down, Chatham pushed everyone forward, but they just couldn’t get the bounce they needed and the game ended in a disappointing 1 – 0 loss.