The South Delta Sun Devils’ amazing run at qualifying for the provincial senior girls soccer championships is alive and well with the youngest starting 11 in the program’s rich history.
The Tsawwassen school keeps adding to its own record by making it 17 straight B.C. tournament appearances thanks to a 1-0 Fraser Valley AAA quarter-final playoff win over Surrey’s Enver Creek on Wednesday afternoon at Winskill Park.
South Delta will now host league rival Panorama Ridge on Monday (3 p.m.) looking to lock up a berth in Thursday’s Valley final which will take place at Cloverdale Athletic Park.
The “streak” has had some challenges in recent years with the Sun Devils needing to win backdoor sudden-death games to get to the provincial showcase event. This time it was promptly taken care of with a line-up that features players that weren’t even in high school a year ago.
The Sun Devils typically field at least four starting Grade 8s and two more in Grade 9. When they needed to preserve their lead in the late going Wednesday, it was three Grade 8s controlling the middle of the park.
They not only don’t look out of place at the senior level but are thriving playing a possession oriented game — routinely beating opponents in one-on-one situations all over the field.
The Sun Devils went unbeaten in league play (5-0-1) to win the South Zone and headed into the post-season ranked No. 4 in the province.
“We have had Grade 8s on the team in the past, typically to fill out a roster and learn from the older kids, but never anything like this,” marvelled co-coach Brent Sweeney. “They want the ball at their feet and that’s what we try to encourage them to do. It started with the very first exhibition game when we told the girls that’s how we wanted to play.
“We knew they had the skills for it and they have kept working on it. It showed again today.”
The best part of South Delta’s game might be at the back where its stingy play resulted in just two goals against in the six league games and a pair of shutouts so far in the playoffs. That’s with a Grade 8 and a Grade 9 among the starting back four.
The instant success for these young players reflects an outstanding group of multi-sport athletes.
The McDonald twins — Kate and Jane — along with Teila Noble are all starters who were also members of the Grade 8 basketball team that finished fourth in B.C.
They all find the time to play Division One community soccer for South Delta United while other underage standouts are at the Metro level or in the TSS Academy program.
“They are good athletes and good competitors,” added co-coach Stephen Burns. “They are willing to get stuck in and are not afraid to do it. They have that mentality that they don’t want to get beat which is awesome. They just go and go. We knew we had a good group after a couple of games.
“The last time we had multi-sport kids like this is when (basketball standouts) Laura Craig, Kira Carre and Becky Atkinson came through (back in 2005). It really is one of the nicest groups we have ever coached and we are having so much fun working with them.”
