Women's Futsal Huskies return to ACAC podium with Silver medal

The Keyano Huskies Women's Futsal team have earned a Silver medal in their return to the Alberta Colleges Athletic Conference's (ACAC) Women's Futsal Championship.

After a pair of victories secured their place in the Gold Medal game Saturday, a tight 2-1 loss in the round-robin finale and 5-2 loss to the SAIT Trojans placed a resilient Huskies squad second overall Sunday.

"As a coach, the only thing that you can expect of your players is to put everything in that they have and do everything to the best of their ability and leave everything out on the court or on the field," Head Coach Niels Slotboom said. "That's exactly what this team did."

Down 3-0 in the late stages of the first half, Nathalie Andersson struck off a corner from Katelyn Boxall to cut the deficit to two.

Midway through the second half, Marissa Mestre blocked an attempt to put the ball in play by the Trojans deep in their own end. The ball deflected to a wide-open Andersson, who struck for her second of the game to make it 4-2. That would be as close as they'd come, with SAIT adding one more goal.

The score wasn't due to a lack of chances as the Huskies had several strong chances go just wide of the net while other chances from the Trojans ended up in the back of their net.

Following the match, Andersson acknowledged that despite the loss, the Huskies had taken another step forward as a team.

"The lesson is probably that I think we doubted ourselves a lot of times and we know now that we can step up to the same level as these teams that have been in the championship for a couple years," Andersson said. "We know that we are there to compete. This is just the first step.

"We'll be coming back next year, we'll be building for more and it's a stepping point for us."

Finishing her tournament with seven of her team's 14 goals, Andersson was a shoe in for the Tournament All-Star team, finding her consistency at the right time according to her head coach.

"She found it in the last couple of weeks of training and it just came right into this weekend as well," Slotboom said. "You could see it coming and again it's a huge confidence boost for her."

For the honour, Andersson credited her teammates with giving her the opportunity to succeed.

"I'm very grateful," Andersson said. "I wouldn't be able to do that without having these amazing team players around me. The opportunities that I got and scoring those goals, it takes more than one player to win a game and score a goal.

"I'm really happy to be named all-star; it's really cool."

While the loss hurts in the immediate, the larger picture is one worth taking note of for a Huskies team that won their first medal since 2016 and the fifth in the team's history.

Alongside Andersson shining bright offensively, the Huskies played strong defensively throughout the entire weekend.

Not always visible on an ACAC scoresheet, goalkeeper Madison Tyson had a strong tournament and, like Andersson, was one of the reasons that Huskies achieved what they did.

As well, strong performances on the offensive and defensive sides of the game from the likes of Emma Bendera, Isabela Bustos-Chaba, Natalie Orellana and Riley Ellis, among many other eligible returnees, the silver medal offers temporary validation that they're on the right track as well as the motivation to achieve even greater things next season. 

"There's experience that are required to get to that point and that's what this is," Slotboom said. "You're second in the season that's had lots of challenges, we had a really good outdoor season, so it's all about perspective that they're building blocks.

"Although it's disappointing, if we can get that perspective in the right frame, then it can be huge for us."