A Moose Jaw Soccerfest championship.
Until now.
The Ardens picked off four straight wins on their way to winning the early-season soccer showcase, taking a comfortable 5-0 victory over Prince Albert St. Mary in the tournament final.
“For the team, this is a big victory,” said Ardens head coach Steve Mah. “This is a somewhat young team and a lot of them haven’t played together, so we’re pretty excited to get four wins. This has never been an easy tournament to win for any team here, so we’re pretty excited about this one.”
Swift Current comes into the new soccer campaign as the 11-time defending Moose Jaw league champions and architects of countless winning seasons over the years. Knowing the quality of teams the Ardens have had in that span of time, it seems strange they’d never won Soccerfest prior to 2019.
“We’ve had a lot of close calls over the years, some games we should have won in the final and just didn’t get a bounce or a call or whatever,” Mah said. “It’s always a tough tournament to win because you have a lot of good teams here and it’s a grind, you pick up injuries, you finish a game and you have to go right back out and warm up again. So it’s definitely meaningful, especially for the coaches who have been at this for awhile.”
Swift Current opened with a 12-0 win over Notre Dame before defeating Regina LeBoldus 4-2 and edging Regina O’Neill 1-0 in the semifinal.
Making things all the more interesting is that this isn’t a ‘traditional’ powerhouse Ardens squad – with their youth and inexperience as a full team, it could have been a rare rebuilding year. But as it turns out…
“I think we take a lot of confidence out of this, knowing we can play with some of the best teams in the province,” Mah said. “We’ve already faced Weyburn twice and picked up a couple wins against them, which also gave us some confidence and an idea of where we stand in the league. So we know we have some work to do to get ready to take on Moose Jaw’s best teams later on this season.”
The Vanier Spirits put together one of the top local performances, as they opened with a 4-1 loss to Yorkton Regional but followed with three straight wins – 7-0 over Yorkton Sacred Heart, 3-0 over the Peacock Tornadoes and 4-1 over the Estevan Elecs in the consolation side final.
The Central Cyclones won their opener 4-0 over Regina Luther but were unable to keep the momentum going as they dropped a 7-2 decision to St. Mary in the quarter-final before rebounding with a 1-0 victory over Yorkton Regional to advance to the fourth-place game. LeBoldus won that contest 4-0 to see the Cyclones finished fifth.
Things were all the more heartening for the rebuilding Tornadoes as they picked up their first win of the season 2-1 over Luther to open consolation bracket play. Peacock lost their opener 7-0 to St. Mary and dropped their final game 4-1 to Notre Dame.
