OSHAWA, Ont. – In the first match played on Vaso's Field since it was upgraded with artificial turf, the Durham College women's soccer team walked away with an easy 3-0 victory over the St. Clair Saints on Saturday morning.
"Today was a special day and I feel honoured that the DC women were the first team to play a match on the field and did the school proud in our victory," said head coach
Alex Bianchi. "This is a tremendous facility we now have, the field surface is really, really good and will serve present and future players very well. This facility is second to none and I'm excited to call this field ours."
Vanessa Juras (Ajax, Ont.) opened the scoring in the 27
th minute of the match off a corner kick, beating Saints' keeper Madison Kaldenbach on the Lords' eighth shot. Juras' corner seemed to create confusion for the Saints and made it across the line before they could clear it.
Following Juras' goal, off a St. Clair foul in the penalty area in the 38
th minute,
Madison Haigh (Bowmanville, Ont.) was able to finish on the opportunity to give her team a 2-0 lead heading into halftime. Durham College led 14-3 in shots and also had four corner kicks, compared to none for the Saints.
"The last few days we focused a lot on our shape and thought we had better control of our shape in our game against St. Clair today," said Bianchi. "We were more composed and did not force the game and I'm happy with our progression thus far and will continue this preparation toward the regular season."
The second half proved to eventually play more to St. Clair's favour, but that came after
Shae-Lynn Young (Oshawa, Ont.) put the Lords ahead 3-0 in the 48
th minute.
From there, the Saints out-chanced the Lords 8-6 in the half and gave themselves numerous opportunities deep in Durham College territory with four corner kicks.
They were unable to capitalize as
Jenna King (Ajax, Ont.) earned the clean sheet for the Lords in the victory, making seven saves.
Kaldenbach and Michaela Bondar each played a half in goal for the Saints, turning aside six and three shots respectively.
On Sunday, the Lords will wrap up preseason play with a trip to Brampton to face the Sheridan Bruins. Kick off is scheduled for 1 p.m.
Overall Record: 1-1-0 (W-L-D)
Conference Record: 0-0-0
Next match: Sunday, August 26 @ Sheridan Bruins (1 p.m. – Brampton)
