Soccer - W | 8/27/2015 11:23:00 PM
BURNABY, BC – The Simon Fraser University Clan opened the women's soccer season with a 2-0 win over Douglas College in an exhibition game Thursday on Terry Fox Field at Simon Fraser University.
The Clan closed out the 2014 season losing 10 straight games but second-year head coach
Annie Hamel has brought in 10 new players to work with the 11 returning players. Everyone who dressed for the match played and everyone contributed.
"The most impressive thing for me tonight is that I played everybody a lot of minutes and I don't feel like it mattered who was on the pitch there was never a drop off," said Hamel. "I played a lot of players in different positions and I don't think it mattered. They have come together and it doesn't matter who and it doesn't matter where. The job was getting done."
Sophomore midfield
Sierra Leung scored both goals for the Clan in the first half, matching her goal total for all of last season. Senior midfielder
Karm Jawandha set up both goals in the 22
nd and 30th minutes.
"Sierra has put in the work and she has made so much growth from her freshman year, through the spring, to now," said Hamel. "She is a player who can be excellent and the sky's the limit for her. I think sometimes she is her worst enemy confidence-wise and she tries to over think things. But tonight she was excellent."
Priya Sandhu and
Simone Tessler each played a half and shared in the shutout. Sandhu made several difficult saves early in the contest.
"The technical stuff is a work in progress a week into preseason but they are picking things up quickly," said Hamel. "Defensively, we made some mistakes and didn't get exposed so we certainly need to fine tune that."
Although the Clan did not score in the second half the team hit the post and cross bar on several occasions and freshman forward
Krystiana Corrado and sophomore midfielder
Mikaela Guerreiro were unlucky not to score.
"I really liked our pace and our ability to push the ball forward," continued Hamel. "Our attacking movement and creativity was excellent and we really should have scored more."
Simon Fraser is practicing daily and will play another exhibition game at the University of the Fraser Valley on Sept. 2. The team will play a non-conference home match on Sept. 5.
