By Steve Martens
Winkler Times — After several false starts and near misses over the last four summers, a local women’s soccer team took to the field this week, opening their first season in style with a win and a draw in their first two outings.
In Wednesday’s home opener, the red and white clad South Central Hurricanes twice held one-goal advantages before settling for a 3-3 tie with SSS United at Winkler’s Parkland pitch. That result came after the Hurricanes opened their Winnipeg Women’s Soccer League Fifth Division season with a 2-0 win over Dub All-Stars in the big city earlier in the week.
Insufficient player numbers had scuttled previous efforts at starting a women’s team but this year, after the spot in the WWSL was secured, the opposite problem was encountered with more hopefuls than could be accommodated on the 18-player roster. While playing home games in Winkler and practicing in Morden, the team has drawn players from throughout the region, including Altona, Plum Coulee and Carman.
The WWSL boasts 35 teams spread across its five divisions with seven in Fifth Division. The Hurricanes will play an unbalanced 18 game regular season with six of those games on home turf.
The regular season runs through the first week of September.
The women are affiliated with both the local senior men’s and youth teams and they pick up the Hurricanes moniker, though not the colours, from the now defunct second men’s team.
Celso Arevalo, who is doing double coaching duty with the Storm and Hurricanes, said they couldn’t have asked for a better start to the team’s first season.
“We didn’t really have any expectations because we didn’t really know any of the other teams,” he said after Wednesday’s game.
“We played pretty well positionally and that’s good to see. We didn’t expect this high calibre of a game this early on.”
Having practiced since March, even before they officially knew they would have a team, has paid off in the quick start.
Bitter wind
Attacking into a bitter north wind in the opening half Wednesday, the Hurricanes opened the scoring after 12 minutes as Jennifer Martens forced the turnover outside the area and walked in all alone.
After the visitors equalized in the 20th minute, a Pam Froese solo effort from the ensuing re-start put the Hurricanes up 2-1. United equalized again late in the opening half and then took their only lead early in the second.
That lasted only 10 minutes as a Tracy Schmidt’s long-range shot through a maze of defenders bounced in off the far post to knot the score at three. With the wind at their backs, the Hurricanes pressed their advantage in the final 10 minutes but were unable to find the winner.
Storm start
On the men’s side of the local soccer scene, the Winkler Storm were scheduled to open their Manitoba Major Soccer League First Division season on Friday in Winnipeg. The result was not available at press time.
The Storm, now the club’s sole men’s team after the sale of the Third Division Hurricanes, were entering that game with United F.C. without the benefit of any exhibition games. Their first home fixture is Friday, May 28 when they host Romania S.C. at 7:30 p.m.
The 12-team First Division includes many familiar opponents for the Storm, including Scotia, Britannia Rovers, Grant Mill Sword and AFF, along with the newly promoted Hanover Kickers, the top team out of Steinbach, whose rise through the divisions in the last few years mirrors the climb the Storm made in the late 1990s.
The other southern Manitoba teams competing in the MMSL this season are the Carman Kickers, who are optimistic about their promotion chances from Fourth Division, and the newly formed Morris Soccer Club who begin their inaugural campaign in Fifth Division.
