The North Central Zone Girls Soccer Championships took centre stage at Williams Lake and Columneetza secondary last Thursday, Sunday and Monday, with six teams vying for a lone shot at provincials.
Both local high schools — the Columneetza Cougars and the Williams Lake Thunder — fielded teams in the tournament, and both teams squared off head-to-head last Thursday for their opening game.
There, Thunder players Kylie Gill, Sydney Redpath and Isabella Ruby each scored to give WLSS a 3-0 win over the Cougars.
From there, however, the Thunder ran into some tough Prince George clubs. Sunday, WLSS fell 1-0 to College Heights before being downed 5-1 by Duchess Park, leaving them in a battle for the third and fourth spot against Nechako Valley Monday afternoon.
In the bronze-medal match, both Gill and Montana Reid found the twine to lift the Thunder to a 2-0 win.
Thunder head coach Catherine Getz said she was proud of the way her team played throughout the tournament.
“We played really well,” Getz said. “They all had a great attitude — even in the game that didn’t go well against Duchess Park they were strong.
“We placed better than we placed last year [fourth] and the girls were great ambassadors for our school and the city.”
Player of the game awards were given to Grade 11s Torie Goodall, Kelsey Smith, Morgan Grosso and Grade 9 Reid.
Following the loss to the Thunder, the Cougars fell 2-1 to the eventual zone winners, College Heights.
The Cougars then went on to beat the Peter Skene Ogden Eagles 5-0 for fifth place at zones.
The Eagles were later awarded the most sportsmanlike team in the tournament.
“The girls improved over last season’s standings and were very competitive in all their games,” said Cougars coach Caitlin Day. “We’ll have a lot of players returning as seniors next year so we hope for continued improvement in 2012.
“It was really nice for senior Grade 12 players Jessica Ball, Megan Lucks, Megan Redpath and Morgan Freeman to be able to play their final high school game in front of their school.”