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Senior girls to play in Provincials

Ladysmith Secondary School’s senior girls soccer squad is off to the BC Provincial soccer championships
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Members of the Ladysmith Secondary senior girl’s soccer team (not in order) are: Karen Battie

Ladysmith Secondary School’s senior girls soccer squad is off to the BC Provincial soccer championships June 2-4 in Campbell River.

Having taken the North Island Championships the week before, the team won their first three games at the Island Championships in Victoria May 16 and 17, enough to send them on to the Provincials.

They beat Colwood’s Royal Bay Secondary School 2-0 in their Tuesday morning game and at press time were scheduled to play for the Vancouver Island title.

“I tell my girls this is all yours for the taking, because if you show up for the game, nobody is going to take you,” Coach Kathleen Nicholls said last week, before the team headed over the Malahat.

The 2016 squad is the strongest LSS has fielded in many years, and the first to make it to the Island finals in a long time.

That, despite Ladysmith, because of the relatively small size of the school, having a senior team composed of players from every grade.

There’s a grade 8 and a grade 9 player on the team, most of the players are in grades 10 to 11; and there’s four grade 12s.

Two of the four graduating students – Karen Battie and Hannah Stannard – have been accepted on the Vancouver Island University team.

In the North Island round LSS downed Shawnigan Lake Secondary 4-0; tied their ‘nemesis Brentwood College 2-2; beat Brooks Secondary, from Powell River, 4-0; and downed Mark Isfeld Secondary out of Courtenay 5-0.

“Brentwood is definitely our nemesis,” Nicholls said after the North Island tournament.

But at the Island finals, held at St. Michael’s University School in Victoria, LSS beat Brooks 3-2 and Brentwood 1-0, before their match with Royal Bay.

Nichols said it’s not only the skill of the LSS team that they needed to muster to make the Provincials, they also had to bring their determination to win into the game if they wanted to advance.

That’s the combination that’s got them this far. “Not only do they have a high level of skill,” Nicholls said, “they also have a strong drive to win. They don’t like to lose.”

 





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