There’s a common theme running through almost all of the matchups on the schedule for the North Shore/Burnaby senior girls AA provincial playdowns.
Actually, to be more accurate, you could say there’s a common team running through the schedule: the Windsor Dukes.
The Dukes finished in the three-way tie for third place in the North Shore league, placing them at the bottom rung of a long ladder leading to a berth in the provincial championships. So what did they do? They climbed.
The Dukes finished off a run of five straight do-or-die wins — including a default win over Burnaby’s Alpha — with a 1-0 victory over North Shore regular season champs Sutherland on Wednesday to book their spot in the provincial championships.
“I’m so excited for the girls — they’ve worked so hard for this,” Windsor head coach Bob Donoghue said moments after the Dukes completed their playoff streak.
“They’ve just come together like a really strong, cohesive team the last four games,” he said. “It’s teamwork. They work for each other. They started off as different groups at the beginning and now you can see how they have just meshed as a team. As a school coach that’s all you really want to do. You’re not going to teach them much in six weeks but you try to get them to be a team, and they’ve done it. They deserve a lot of credit.”
The Dukes likely wouldn’t have needed all the heroics if they’d stayed healthy all year, but three of the team’s best players were all injured early in the season, contributing to Windsor’s middling 4-3 record during the regular season. The team was nearly at full strength, however, when playoff time rolled around. With elimination hanging in the balance in every game, Windsor first dispatched St. Thomas Aquinas 2-0 in a tiebreaker before scoring a 3-0 win over Collingwood. The Dukes then roughed up their old rivals from Seycove 3-1 before Alpha’s forfeit put them into one final must-win match against Sutherland. The Dukes didn’t disappoint against the North Shore champs, controlling the ball for long stretches of play before finally getting the breakthrough goal midway through the second half.
Speedy winger Kristen Kellmann started the goal-scoring play with a skillful steal in the Sutherland half before laying off to Grade 12 stopper Pauline McCordic. Finding a little space just a couple of metres away from the sideline, McCordic unleashed a rocket of a shot that zipped over the keeper’s head and blasted into the side netting inside the far post.
“She’s probably our top player,” Donoghue said of McCordic, adding that he gives his stopper free rein to join the attack when she sees an opportunity. “I told her, ‘If you’ve got the opportunity, go forward.’ She’s got a good shot. Take the chance. We’ll live with the three (defenders) in the back, I’m comfortable with them.”
While the winning kick could have been mistaken for a cross given that it came from such a steep angle, Donoghue said there was no doubt McCordic was shooting for mesh.
“That was a shot,” he said. “She’s a very, very talented girl,”
Donoghue also gave kudos to his pair of Sarahs, central midfielders Sarah Clayford-Beckie and Sarah Pendreigh, for controlling the play throughout the game.
“They just worked so hard and they controlled the ball when they got it,” he said. “They fought hard, they used their bodies. Without them it would have been a different story for sure.”
The team’s defence and goaltending combined to put up another shutout, their third of the playoffs. “(They’re) dynamite,” Donoghue said of his defenders. “They don’t lose the ball, they don’t kick the ball away. . . . I can’t say enough about them.”
The defence needed to be on point against a tough Sutherland squad that ran away with the North Shore title in an undefeated regular season.
“They have a very strong backline and they have some speed up front that we had to counter,” said Donoghue. “We did some extra things with our backline to make sure that didn’t work. We eventually kept chipping away and chipping away and finally got that one shot that found the back of the net.”
Windsor kept control of the ball for long stretches of play against Sutherland, playing a possession game meant to keep the Dukes fresh on a day where the hot spring sun was sizzling off the Sutherland turf.
“We do try to play a possession game,” said Donoghue. “We did, at times, especially at the start of the second half, play the kick and run, and we could see our players just dying out there. It’s too hot to be running up and down, up and down. We tried to get them to settle it back, play to feet through the middle and out.”
The Dukes looked strong and Donoghue is hoping that will translate into more success at the provincial AA championships scheduled for May 29-31
in Penticton.
“I figure the hardest thing is getting off the North Shore,” he said. “If you get off the North Shore you’ll probably end up in the top four. My goal is to win but I don’t want to finish any less than the top four. I hope that we’ll win it.”
Regardless of how things end up at provincials, this team has already been on a memorable ride.
“The girls deserve all the credit,” said Donoghue. “They’re all just great team players. And they’re so nice to me. This is why I do it. I don’t have a daughter on the team. I’ve been doing it for a number of years now and I love it because they treat me well. I give them the responsibility, it’s them who do it. I love seeing them succeed.”
