VOYAGEURS SHOW PROMISE DESPITE BACK-TO-BACK SHUTOUT LOSSES

LAC LA BICHE & EDMONTON – In sports, when you're rebuilding, success can seem as elusive as the pot of gold at then end of the rainbow. You feel like you're always the bug and never the windshield; the light at the end of the tunnel is an oncoming train; putting one foot in front of the other feels impossible…. you get the picture.

The Portage College Voyageurs haven't found the pot of gold on the scoreboard yet, but they are taking giant leaps forward in their development this year. Compared to last year, there's more structure in their game and matches are closer than the score clock indicates. Case in point: this past weekend. With barely enough healthy players to field an 11-person squad, the Voyageurs more than held their own against two tough opponents.

On Saturday, the Voyageurs hosted the always tough Keyano College Huskies, who walloped them 8-0 in Fort McMurray at the beginning of September. This time the hosts, who played a portion of the first half with only nine players on the field due to injuries and no substitutes available, nearly held the Huskies at bay and off the scoreboard, a last-second goal by Aimee Menting erasing the chance to go into halftime deadlocked at nil-nil.

The second half was more of the same, and although the Huskies added three more goals in an 11-minute span midway through the period to run away with a 4-0 win, Head Coach Macky Singh found a lot to like in his players' effort and defensive structure.

"Credit to the ladies, they applied what we worked on, and they were hard to break down, really hard to break down," he said.

Twenty-four hour later in Edmonton, facing the division-leading Concordia Thunder, the Voyageurs again played a strong first half and were seconds away from a scoreless frame when Isabella Amico beat busy Portage keeper Lilly Mangan to give the hosts the lead. Despite the setback, the visitors remained competitive for most the second half, trailing 3-0 with 10 minutes left. At that point, their depleted roster simply ran out of gas and the floodgates opened, with the Thunder potting six unanswered goals for a 9-0 win. Considering most of his available players were on the field for 180-plus minutes over the two games, Singh was far from disappointed in the weekend.

"You know, Concordia had a full roster of 18 players and I've got banged up ladies and 10 of them played on Saturday and Sunday so eventually something gave…I'm just happy with the way the ladies went about the job and played the game," he said. "Had we had a full squad and a healthy squad, I think we would have been able to compete."

As he prepares his players for a rematch against the Thunder at the Bold Centre Soccer Field October 4, the veteran head coach is optimistic the long rebuild is on the right track – as long as his players can stay out of the infirmary.

"The program is moving in the right direction," said Singh. "I just have to have a bigger squad and no injuries!"