Women’s soccer team kicks bad losing habit

By Tracey Tong

Ryerson’s women’s soccer team has halted one dreadfully long losing streak. But another continues.

Last Thursday, the Rams, on a goal by forward Rania Amer, beat George Brown College 1-0 in an exhibition game, marking the first time they’ve won since Jon Sanderson took over as coach two years ago.

Two days later they picked up where they left off in Ontario University Athletics (OUA) play by losing 7-0 to the Brock Badgers at Birchmount Stadium in Scarborough.

But the lopsided loss was overshadowed by the fact that the Rams started the season with an optimistic performance.

The game on Thursday gave us a positive outlook, and confidence, something that we’ve been lacking for a long time,” Sanderson said.

Although George Brown plays in the lower calibre Ontario Colleges Athletic Association, Sanderson said the game still provided his team with a good opening test.

“We played reasonably well for our first time together as a group,” he said.

The Rams went 0-12 in the OUA East Division last year, but will have a different schedule this season. Pitted in the OUA South/Central division, which includes Brock, McMaster and Guelph, they’ll play nine more games against the teams from Toronto to Windsor.

“I think that the group as a whole is more committed to the work ethic needed to succeed than in previous years,” Sanderson said. “Our goal this year is to be competitive in all of the matches. I think that this year, we have the personnel to put a couple of wins on the board.”

The Rams, however, were only competitive in the first half of Saturday’s game against Brock, after which they trailed 2-0.

“We weren’t prepared to play a team much better than George Brown,” said forward Isabel Campbell, one of nine returning players on the team. “Brock played really well. This makes us recognize that we need to put more time into cardio and training.”

On Saturday, Ryerson travels to the University of Waterloo to take on the Warriors before hosting the Wilfred Laurier Golden Hawks Sunday at 3 p.m. at Birchmount Stadium.