CALGARY – The University of Calgary Dinos women's soccer team showed no signs of rust coming out of a successful 2018 campaign, opening the new season with a 5-0 win over the UBC Okanagan Heat Thursday evening at Dinosaur Field.
It was a bit of a slow start despite the possession strongly tilted in the Dinos' favour. It took just over 23 minutes to open the scoring coming off the foot of
Kelsie MacDonald who was able to put one off the fingertips of a leaping Iona Lawson.
Once the first goal of the season was put in, the Dinos looked like they found their footing with a second goal coming two minutes later when MacDonald put a perfect ball across to
Montana Leonard, putting her first goal of the campaign home.
The pair of Leonard and MacDonald exchanged one more goal each to make it 4-0 going into the half.
The Dinos didn't show any signs of slowing down coming out of the break as just five minutes into the second half MacDonald put a loose ball home for the hat trick resulting from a set piece fed in by
Amy Mikuska.
"It felt good being able to get out to a good start," MacDonald said of her three-goal performance. "I wasn't able to produce early last season so putting three in today was a positive."
After the fifth goal of the match play settled down as both teams exchanged chances but the two keepers were able to keep the ball out of the back of the net ending the game 5-0 in favour of the home team.
Goalkeeper and 2018 first team all-star
Lauren Houghton wasn't challenged much, turning away all three shots she faced.
"After a shaky first 10 minutes or so we settled in and were able to score some goals," Calgary head coach
Troye Flannery said of his team's performance. "It's nice to get that first one out of the way but we have a different look on Saturday that we have to prepare for."
The next game for the club will come on Saturday against Thompson Rivers University. Kick-off is set for noon at Dinosaur Field. The Heat will head to Prince George to face UNBC Saturday afternoon.
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