Alexander Colle | Sports Editor
Featured Image: Shutouts against Waterloo and Western bring the women to a record of 2-0 in the early season. | Courtesy of York Lions
The women’s field hockey team asserted their dominance early in the regular season on Saturday, winning their first two games by a combined score of 13-0 against Waterloo and Western in London.
The double-header began with a matchup against Waterloo, which ended in a 8-0 blowout by York that featured a hat trick from rookie Jaslan Sterling.
“Jaslan is a burgoning young player who’s very talented,” said reigning U SPORTS Coach of the Year Zeeshan Minhas. “She has also represented Canada in the Junior World Cup Qualifiers before coming to York. She was a great pick-up for our program, and going forward she will be a good player for us.”
The game began with an offensive onslaught by the Lions, with the team scoring three goals in the first 18 minutes. The goals by Sterling, Madison Mitchell, and Kyra McKinnon gave the Lions a 3-0 lead going into the half.
Coming out of the break, the Lions continued their domination against the helpless Warriors defence, scoring three more times in the first 20 minutes of the half, courtesy of Sterling, Paige Koochin, and Mikhaela Slavin.
Rather than taking their foot off the gas in the final minutes of play, York struck two more finishing blows courtesy of Stirling, who netted her third goal in the 59th minute, and Montana Merrante who found the back of the net for the first time this season in the 60th minute.
The game ended in a 8-0 victory for a team that was just getting started.
The second game of the afternoon was a matchup against Western that ended in a 5-0 victory for the Lions.
The goal scoring did not come as easily in this game, as the Lions found themselves scoreless after most of the first half. However, the stalemate was broken in the 34th minute, when Sara Vollmerhausen scored off of an unassisted corner.
It was only after the first half where a revitalized Lionesses team began to show their offensive skillset by scoring in the 40th and 44th minute courtesy of Merrante and Vollmerhausen, which was her second corner goal of the game.
Similar to their game against Waterloo, York did not opt to put the offense in cruise control as they tallied two more goals in the 57th and 62nd minute, courtesy of Ravneet Kalkat and Frankie St. Louis, respectively.
This gave the Lionesses an insurmountable five-goal lead, eventually becoming the final score.
“Our goalscoring was good and our forward line did a fantastic job today,” commented Minhas after the match. “Our passing was excellent. We passed the ball well around the defence, and that’s how we were able to exploit them. We have a lot of fast forwards who outrun defenders.”
Including a preseason that saw the team visit England for a successful four-game series against English clubs and a U of T Invitational, seeing them sweep the competition and finishing 4-0, the 2017 campaign has started off exceptionally well for the Lions, who now own a record of 8-1.
This success comes from a program that has seen a steady incline over the last half decade under Minhas. Since their disappointing 2013 campaign that saw a record of 1-9-2, the team has made steady improvement every season, improving to 4-9-2 in 2014, 5-7-2 in 2015, and 9-3-3 in 2016.
When asked about the key to the recent success of the program, Minhas says: “bringing in better players,” was the difference.
“It created a lot of internal competition for players pushing each other in practices and even in the offseason to work hard.
“Obviously everybody wants to play and dress. That’s exactly what made this team better.
“I believe this team can win a championship,” she adds.
The lionesses are back at it again on September 23 against cross-town rivals, the U of T Varsity Blues.
Face-off is at 10:45 a.m. in Kingston.
