Delta soccer players played a pivotal role in a historic national championship.
Seven players from Delta were part of the Coastal FC U17 girls B.C. Soccer Premier League team that won the national title earlier this month at South Surrey Athletic Park.
It is the first national title for the Coastal FC program and first Canadian championship for a girls’ team at this age group for B.C. since 1997.
“It was a long, tough week. We spent a long time preparing for this,” said assistant coach Rob Muter. “We put ourselves up against some university teams – Trinity Western and UBC – we’ve obviously been playing in our league and all the hard work paid off. This is the first-ever national title for Coastal FC, so it’s a huge accomplishment that the girls should be very proud of and the coaches as well.”
The seven Delta players on the team included Emily Birarda, Breanne Gallagher, Olivia Ortiz and Eleanor Morrison from Tsawwassen as well as Sydney Tait, Kara Skirzyk and Alicia Skirzyk from North Delta.
Gallagher scored the game winner in the final to beat Quebec 2-1, while Morrison scored the game winner to beat Ontario 1-0 in the semi-final.
“Eleanor played in the midfield and played every minute of every game. She was solid,” said Muter. “We asked her to shut down a couple of players and she certainly did that. Emily also had the role of shutting down a player on the Ontario squad and one on the Quebec side. She did an incredible job.
“Breanne scored the winning goal of the championship match. She worked so hard the entire tournament and was at the right place at the right time to seal the deal and bring home the trophy.”
Muter said Ortiz and Alicia Skirzyk were both injured and could not play, but did everything they could to support the team from the sidelines.
He said the strength of the team collectively was its defensive mindset.
“Considering we only conceded two goals in five games against these high quality teams, so we had everyone step up throughout the whole tournament,” he added. “Having our coach having previously been to many of these and having him talk about it, it didn’t seem like a possibility, but now that we have gone through it, we can relate to a lot of the stories that he has told. Personally it is just an amazing feeling to accomplish something with such an amazing group of human beings and athletes. They should just be so proud of themselves.”
The B.C. Soccer Premier League is the top level of competitive youth soccer in B.C. Clubs formed from regions to produce eight “franchise” clubs.
