Here is Walt Brandl’s account of this past weekend’s women’s game …
Between the deluge of Friday evening and the torrent of Saturday night the weather cleared up long enough for the Burnaby Lake Premier Women to chalk up another win. With Connaught Park supposedly closed by the Vancouver Park Board the Meralomas secured Barry Ebl’s old stomping ground, Balaclava Park. The pitch was in pristine condition and the weather was warm and dry, perfect conditions for a well played game.
What transpired, however, might as well been played in the mud. Both teams had difficulty generating any kind of continuity in attack. Burnaby found some space in the mid field early and Sabrina Neufeld was able to exploit it with support from fullback Michelle Paquet and centre Michelle Young. After a long period of Burnaby territorial advantage, Julia Sugawara was able to find a gap in a determined ‘Loma defense to score between the posts. Anna Schnell converted. Burnaby Lake dominated set pieces against a larger pack of forwards but the possession was not easily converted into points.
In the second half the scrappiness at breakdown increased and with little assistance from the referee the game bogged down into a fairly static affair. Finally at around the 30 minute mark Julia Sugawara slipped through on the blindside and into the end zone again. Anna Schnell was again successful with the convert and the final was 14-0 Burnaby Lake.
The game marked the debut of PEI product Michelle Young for the club and the return of Mandy Lewis who was recovering from abdominal surgery following a Mexican vacation (or was it recovering from Mexican surgery following an abdominal vacation)
Burnaby Lake catches an early ferry next week to play defending champions Nanaimo (7-5 winners over Burnaby Lake in last year’s final) on the Island next week.
