Canby Herald Online

Cougars fall by one goal in league opener to McMinnville

Canby girls soccer team falls Thursday on the road

• By: Alex Tam  
• Published: 9/30/2009 2:07:54 PM
• Last Updated: 9/30/2009 2:25:38 PM

McMINNVILLE — In what was likely its most physical game of the season, the Canby girls soccer team learned a valuable lesson as Pacific Conference play begins.

The Cougars fell to McMinnville, 2-1, on Thursday night at McMinnville High School.

“Overall, it was just a really really physical game against a physical team,” coach Ben Winegar said. “Our style of play suffered a little bit because we weren’t able to play under that much pressure — for the first time (this season) we’ve had that much pressure.”

McMinnville scored in the first minute of the contest following a defensive miscue by Canby.

However, the Cougars answered when sophomore Brittany Gillespie scored to tie the game, 1-1, in the first half.

The Grizzlies took the lead for good in the second half for a 2-1 advantage and held on for the victory.

“Mistakes here and there were what hurt us and we gave them two goals,” Winegar said. “So we just have to continue working on our set plays and things like that.”

Canby fell to 1-2-1 overall, and 0-1-0 in conference play.

Despite the record, Winegar feels his team continues to improve and will be just a matter of time before the wins come.

“It’s unfortunate to look at our scores and to think that we’re having a losing record because of how much progress we’ve been making,” Winegar said. “The players feel the same way about it. We played really good soccer but we beat ourselves with mistakes and we let their physicality overcome us.”

While it is still a work in progress in Winegar’s first season, he said he is excited for the rest of the year and to see the progress heading forward.

“The way we play, we’re built to play against the best teams,” he said. “That’s our goal anyway — to be able to play and compete against teams in the past that we almost think we didn’t belong on the same field as.”

Canby will get another test when it hosts traditional conference powerhouses Tualatin and Tigard this week on Tuesday and Thursday, respectively. Game times are 6 p.m.

“For me as a coach, that’s probably the biggest days,” Winegar said. “We have home matches against the top two teams from the past few years in the conference.”

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