Jefferson Hagen / MacEwan Athletics
A slow start and lack of finish proved costly for the MacEwan Griffins, who were forced to settle for a 1-1 draw in a visit to the Winnipeg Wesmen in Canada West women's soccer action on Friday night.
The 6-4-1 Griffins actually fell behind the 1-7-3 Wesmen, who are six points outside of the playoff picture, in Friday's match when Wesmen midfielder Tyler Johnson tallied in the 26th minute.
"They scored on a quick free kick play. We were sleeping at the wheel a little bit," said MacEwan head coach Dean Cordeiro. "They played a quick ball and it was a nice finish by the girl."
Playing from behind, the Griffins managed to equalize in the 44th minute when Kaylin Hermanutz notched her third goal of the season.
"It was kind of a wakeup call for us, which was good," said Cordeiro. "We scored on a nice little interplay at the top of the box.
"Meghan Oram turned the corner in the box and put a great ball on the net. Then Kaylin – minutes after coming into the game – made a great run and had a back-door tap-in after the initial shot by Meghan."
After that, MacEwan had numerous chances to get another goal and pick up three points, but their offence couldn't find a way to beat Winnipeg goalkeeper Madison Fordyce, who made nine saves.
"The whole second half we were all over them," said Cordeiro. "We just couldn't connect. Their keeper was the player of the game. She kind of stood on her head.
"A lot of our opportunities needed to be better."
You could say there were a fair amount of lessons learned for the Griffins as they finish off the Winnipeg road trip with a visit to Manitoba (3-5-3) on Sunday (5:30 p.m. MT, Canada West TV).
"We've just got to finish our opportunities and we've got to be a little bit hungrier," said Cordeiro. "Everyone's playing for something different at this stage of the season. We're trying to finish as best as we can, jockeying for playoff seeding. And we've got to be a bit more fired up.
"I was disappointed with how we started the game. It took them to score a goal to wake us up and from that moment on we were very good, scored a goal and were unlucky to not score a couple others. But you can't put yourself in the position. The league is too good. Credit Winnipeg. They were very organized today and they made it difficult for us. They did what they needed to do to nick a result.
"But we've got to be much better tomorrow against a very motivated Manitoba team. They lost to UNBC today, so they're going to be fighting to get some points out of tomorrow. We've got to play a 90-minute game tomorrow."
