Rain or shine, the Thompson-Okanagan Football Club’s under-13 girls have proven their resiliency and have a BC Soccer Premier League championship to show for it.
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For a second straight week, the TOFC side came from behind in playoff action to claim a BCSPL victory. On Sunday at the Apple Bowl in Kelowna, a 3-1 triumph over the Coastal FC earned the determined young team the first-ever girls’ provincial Premier Cup championship in TOFC history.
Trailing 1-0 early on, the hosts overcame their initial jitters in front of an enthusiastic partisan crowd to pull into a tie before the half. Centre midfielder Abigail Taneda of West Kelowna found the top of the net with a perfectly struck ball on a free kick from about 20 yards out.
The TOFC applied even more pressure at the start of the second half, with Taneda hitting the post with a hard shot and Annika Gross just missing with a laser over the crossbar.
Moments later, it was Taneda again taking a free kick from about 25 yards and scoring what would stand up as the winning goal.
Less than three minutes later, TOFC put the game away when Kate Cartier of Kelowna sent another long shot over the Coastal FC netminder and into the net for the host team’s third goal. Passes by Ava Wright of Vernon and Chloe Alex of Penticton set up the clincher.
Continued pressure from TOFC kept Coastal from mounting many attacks. Those that did threaten were turned aside by the team playing stellar defence. The back line of Lauren Schmidt (Kelowna), Chloe Dalgarno (Kelowna), Jaidyn McGrath (West Kelowna) and Sophia Clarke (Kelowna) along with keeper Liesl Milovic (Kamloops) kept the Coastal attack from scoring.
Head coach, Brian Dewar of Kelowna, was pleased with the way the team played as a unit and didn’t back down despite giving up the early goal.
"This is a special group of girls and they have continued to develop as a team all year,” he said. “The resulting Premier Cup win and the BCSPL championship is well deserved. We’re proud of all of them."
The TOFC, third-place finishers in the regular season in the top youth soccer league in the province with a 9-3-2 record, were coming off a 2-1 come-from-behind win over the third-place Mountain United FC a week earlier in Burnaby. Coastal, finishing in fourth place (8-4--2), had also posted a semifinal upset by defeating first-place Coquitlam Metro-Ford SC (11-2-1).
Unlike Sunday when they played under clear skies and high temperatures, the TOFC girls overcame a 1-0 halftime deficit in heavy rain and on a water-logged turf to earn a berth in the championship match week earlier.
Taneda set up the first goal with a corner kick that Gross was able to get a head on it and deflect off the crossbar and in. Kiera Howaniec of Kamloops notched the winner at the 55th minute.
Meanwhile, the TOFC played host to all 10 Premier Cup finals on the weekend — five boys (U13 to U18) matches on Saturday and five girls games on Sunday. The U13 girls final was the only one involving a TOFC team.
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