The Carleton Ravens women’s soccer team began its 2016 season with a win and a draw on opening weekend, the program’s first under newly-appointed head coach Fred Juett.
The Ravens kicked off their campaign with a 2-1 win in Peterborough against the Trent Excalibur, the team that finished last in the Ontario University Athletics (OUA) last season, then returned home to grind out a 2-2 draw against the University of Ontario Institute of Technology (UOIT) Ridgebacks.
Juett said the pair of weekend games were “pretty good.”
“We got four points out of six, played well at times, but our consistency was lacking,” he said.
Juett joins the team as head coach after serving time as an assistant coach with the squad on two separate occasions, most recently from 2003-08.
Carleton dominated for virtually the entire 90 minutes in Peterborough on Friday night. All three goals in the game were scored within a 12-minute span, with Kelsey Saha and Heather Riach tallying for Carleton, while Kaitlyn Steffer scored for Trent.
The Ravens out shot Trent 7-1 and the result never appeared in doubt in the second half.
The Ravens returned home for their home opener on Sunday afternoon against the UOIT Ridgebacks—a team they’d upset in the first round of last season’s playoffs.
Despite losing the possession battle for most of the first half, Carleton drew first blood in 44 minutes through veteran Nicole Filipow, who slotted home off a nice feed from former Ridgeback Emily Copeland Dinan.
The visitors drew level six minutes after the restart via freshman Rhiannon Kissel, who capitalized on a goalkeeper-defender blunder between Carleton’s Rada Mintchev and Melat Cherent to finish into an empty net.
Carleton regained the lead with ten minutes from time, when Copeland Dinan finished a superb ball from Abby Nicastro past UOIT goalkeeper Helen Frampton.
The Ridgebacks responded a minute later, with Kissel this time sprinting onto a through ball and slotting past Mintchev to earn the visitors a draw.
“You get a lead with 10 minutes left in the game, you hope to win,” Juett said. “But give them credit, they came back.”
With a daunting trip to perennial contender University of Ottawa Gee-Gees next weekend, the Ravens coach knows his side will have to up the ante to get a result against the Gee-Gees.
“We need to continue to work on our shape [and] zonal marking, which is a slight variation [from last year] and we have to get better on it,” Juett said. “Ottawa’s what we’re aspiring to, so we’re looking forward to the challenge.”
Juett said the goal for his program, which finished sixth in the OUA East and made the divisional semi-final last year, is simple.
“We need to make the playoffs, that’s our priority,” Juett said. “Anybody who gets into the playoffs has an opportunity.”
The Ravens will take on the University of Ottawa Gee-Gees at Matt Anthony Field on Sept. 3 at 1 p.m.
