The Ravens women’s soccer team began their preseason with one win, two losses, and one tie.
The games took place Aug. 15-18 against the Bishop’s University Gaiters, the University of Alberta Golden Bears, the Université de Sherbrooke Vert-et-Or, and the Concordia University Stingers.
The Ravens lost their first two games to Bishop’s 1-0 and to Alberta 2-1.
But, the Ravens came back and won their next game against Sherbrooke 2-1 and were able to score a late tying goal against Concordia to tie the game 1-1.
“Our players really have a motivation to work hard, and want to do well this year,” Dominic Oliveri, head coach of the Ravens’ women’s soccer team, said.
Oliveri said he did not expect the Ravens to do so well in their final game against Concordia because it was their fourth game in four days. He said he was impressed the team was able to pull off the tie.
“We just need to be more competitive in practice. There are a lot of things to do tactically to improve our system for how we want to play our game, and that will be a process throughout the year,” Oliveri said.
The games marked the first opportunity for newer Ravens to play together, defender and team captain Sarah Zutrauen said.
“It provided a great gauge of where we are at and what we need to work on,” Zutrauen said in an email.
This start is promising for the Ravens, given their poor season last year, where they finished sixth in the Eastern OUA standings, with five wins, 10 losses, and one tie.
“Our team will constantly be evolving, striving to be better than we were the day before,” Zutrauen said.
Coming so low in standings last year was a downgrade from the 2016-17 season, as the Ravens finished in fourth place that year in the OUA Eastern Conference.
Oliveri said the Ravens’ focus was not to go a perfect 4-0 in preseason, rather it was just to compete against the teams and focus on their own team.
“We are very happy,” Oliveri said. “We do not really care about results in preseason. We got a lot of players’ minutes.From our first game to our fourth game, there is a big improvement.”
The Ravens start their regular season on Aug. 25 against the Laurentian University Rowers.
“We are really ready to play. We are really excited,” Oliveri said. “We still have three or four days of practice where we can work towards implementing our system. Our goal is to get better every day, and so far, we have done that.”
