South Delta Sun Devils' title hopes ran into another North Shore road block at the provincial "AAA" girls field hockey championships.
A year ago, South Delta's run for gold ended with a quarter-final loss to West Vancouver. This time the tournament's second ranked team fell 1-0 in the semi-finals to the Carson Graham Eagles. The defending champions broke a scoreless deadlock with just three minutes remaining in regulation time.
For Sun Devils head coach Neil McLennan, it was a script he was all too familiar with. He watched his squad carry the majority of the play and generate the better scoring chances only to come away empty handed. The Tsawwassen school was attempting to advance to the gold game for just the second time in school history.
"We hit the goal post, which has been a recurring theme this year, and two other balls reached the goal line, behind the goalie, only not to go in," said McLennan. "It was one of those things that can happen."
South Delta also had a considerable edge in play during its bronze medal game against Oak Bay but surrendered an early goal and never could get it back in a 1-0 loss.
"We were definitely one of the best teams at the tournament based on how we played and the comments I received from the university selectors that were in attendance," coontinued McLennan. "However that is the beauty and harshness of sport. Sometimes things just do not work out for reasons that you cannot entirely understand."
So were the Devils missing a pure goal scorer that can make a difference in tight games? Perhaps, but their shortcomings were more about the other intangibles it takes in having to win six games over three days to be B.C. champs.
"They definitely don't grow on trees and it takes a bit of a knack of being in the right place at the right time and not panicking," added McLennan of being a high quality finisher. "But what you really need is the bounces and breaks to go your way and unfortunately it didn't happen for us enough. I'm still really pleased with how we played and how our season ended."
South Delta's road to the final four included a perfect run in round-robin play with wins over McMath (3-0), Charles Best (3-0) and Okanagan zone champions Kelowna (1-0). The girls then took out a stingy South Kamloops team 1-0 in the quarter-finals.
