For the second time in the past three years, R.D. Parker Collegiate's girls' soccer squad was seconds from victory and a trip to the provincial championships, only to see their dreams dashed by a last-minute goal and an eventual extra-time loss.
"The girls deserved the day," said James Crouch, co-coach of the Trojans' boys' soccer team, who watched the girls' final from the sideline. "They had the lead with one minute of the game left. There was a firm challenge between two girls on the pitch and the ref decided to send one of our girls off, issuing a red card."
With about three minutes of injury time tacked on after regulation time expired, the Hapnot Collegiate Institute Kopper Kweens of Flin Flon managed to get the equalizer and send the game to overtime, where RDPC held the opponent off the scoresheet despite playing all of the extra period with only 10 players on the field.
"[The girls] ended up coming second after 13 penalty kicks were taken by each side," said Crouch. "A great performance by the girls' team, very well led and directed by Stan Wong. They should be applying for a wild card. I think they would get there."
Two years ago, the Trojans' girls soccer team fell 3-2 to the Kopper Kweens in overtime after leading with less than five minutes left in the game. They avenged that defeat last year with a 2-0 victory to take the Zone 11 championship away from Hapnot's team.
History repeated itself for the boys' team as well, as they won their first two games before losing to Joe A. Ross School in their third game, ending their hopes of making it to the final.
"They won the first two games with ease and were unlucky with the third game, when they conceded two goals early on," said Crouch. "I made a change in formation and it was really the Battle of the Alamo for Joe A. Ross. We were all over them in the last quarter of the game but just could not finish."
Joe A. Ross defeated the boys' team in last year's zone championships, knocking them out of contention for a shot at the top spot.
The year before, RDPC's boys team finished on the wrong end of a one-goal game at Burntwood field in the zone championship final, giving up the only goal of the game to Hapnot's Kopper Kings in the 83rd minute of play
"The margin between success and failure is so close," said Crouch. "The boys were just fantastic."
