The Rossland Secondary School girls field hockey team got off to a great start at the B.C. High School AA field hockey championship, as they stick-handled their way into today’s semifinal.
The RSS Royals finished second in their pool after downing Southridge Secondary from Surrey 4-2 before disposing of West Vancouver’s Rockridge 3-0 on Wednesday.
But the team came up short against a surprising Crofton side Thursday morning losing the final game of round-robin play 5-1.
“I don’t think we’re playing that well yet,” said coach Donna Hebert from Burnaby. “We’ve had some good moments, we’re just not playing consistently.”
In the game against Crofton, the score was’nt indicative of the play at all, as RSS controlled the match but missed many good scoring opportunities and gave up some bad goals.
However, the young defence performed better in the quarter final against the team from South Okanagan. Kaycee McKinnon scored twice for the Royals while veteran Jill Armour also tallied one to shut out Oliver 3-0.
“We haven’t put together a really strong game yet with full intensity, which is good I guess,” said Hebert.
The team will play the winner of number-one ranked Shaunigan and Summerland.
“It will be Shaunigan,” said Hebert. “They are clearly the strongest team here.”
However, RSS upset Shaunigan and eliminated them from the medal round in last year’s tournament in which the Royals took home bronze. They are hoping to do the same this year and may have an edge.
“The Shaunigan goalie is our former goalie so I think in some ways that gives us a bit of an advantage . . . it plays a bit of a mind game with them and that’s how I think we beat Shaunigan last year by getting into the goalie’s head a little bit.”
Collingwood is also in the other semifinal and is last year’s champion. In looking forward, Hebert says if her team plays up to their potential they can compete with the province’s best teams.
RSS plays at 9:30 a.m. and then either at 1 p.m. for the bronze or at 2:45 p.m. for the gold.