Mystics defend women's soccer title
The Mystics women's soccer team defeated the UNBSJ Seawolves 3-1 Sunday afternoon to claim their second-consecutive championship title.
Source: ACAA Championship
For a second consecutive season, the Mount Saint Vincent University Mystics are ACAA women's soccer champions.
The second-seed squad dominated the fourth-seed University of New Brunswick Saint John Seawolves for most of Sunday's championship game, notably capitalizing on well-executed plays.
It took a bit for the dominance to kick in, as UNBSJ proved to be a challenging dark horse in the early going. Scarlette MacDonald, the team's lone goal-scorer in the semifinals, had a fiery start with multiple rushes down the field off great feeds, but was denied every time by a red-hot Morgan Gillis in the Mystics' net.
After 27 minutes of no score, MSVU broke the deadlock in the 28th minute, steering the game in their favour the rest of the way. Emma Farrell let a high-soarer go from a few feet beyond the center circle, catching Seawolves goalkeeper Kaitlyn Brzezicki off guard as the ball flew over her head and into the net.
At that point, it appeared the Seawolves had run out of fuel, as the Mystics piled on two more goals within the next 20 minutes.
In the 34th minute, Ashley Neves had a right-side corner kick headed away from the goal area, but the ball reemerged in front of her, and she kicked it through heavy net-front traffic, where it found an open Maria Antle at the goal line for a 2-0 Mystics lead; that was also the score at halftime.
In the 48th minute, off fantastic passing up the field, Mhyah Allen collected the ball up the left wing, rushed to the edge of the goal area, and smashed home a fast one past Brzezicki, who applied pressure but was unsuccessful.
The Seawolves continued to struggle making something happen in the closing minutes. They managed to get on the board once in the 87th minute. Isabel Miluton kicked the ball to the edge of the penalty area, where MacDonald faked the goalkeeper and fired the ball into the open net.
By that point, unfortunately, time had run out, and the Mystics were crowned champions.
Kenadie Wagg was named the Mystics Player of the Game. MacDonald earned Seawolves Player of the Game honours.
MSVU's championship victory sends them to the CCAA Nationals, where they'll represent the ACAA on Nov. 5-8 in Red Deer, Alberta.