A Look at the Opening Weekend for CBU Women’s Soccer

A Look at the Opening Weekend for CBU Women's Soccer 

By IAIN KING: 

University of New Brunswick 0 Cape Breton 1 

UPEI 0 Cape Breton 6 

CAPERS Women's Head Coach Ness Timmons hailed the impact of his rookies as his squad emerged from the opening weekend of AUS action with a flawless 2-0 record. Seven goals scored, six points in the bag and two clean sheets. The road trip to New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island was navigated superbly by the new-look CBU team. The 2024 campaign began on Friday night with a difficult opener at UNB Reds as key midfielder Grace Hannaford's early goal clinched the victory. 

 
"That was a good result for us in a tough venue for the opener," reflected Ness afterwards. "It was great to see so many of our young players hit a good level alongside more experienced team-mates. We managed to get our whole available roster on the field and those minutes are so valuable. Haylie Clarke, for instance, played two different roles in central defensive midfield and at centre-back and did very well." 

After a trip to Prince Edward Island and a squad rest day on Saturday the CAPERS were back in action against the UPEI Panthers. UPEI Head Coach Lewis Page, recently appointed at the helm of new Nova Scotia professional franchise Halifax Tides, got their season off to a flying start with a 3-2 win over Memorial on Friday night. 

Any hopes they had of a repeat of that success, though, were crushed in a dominant first-half from the CAPERS that saw Ally Wilton open the scoring before Ally Rowe and a Grace Hannaford double made it 4-0 at the break. CAPERS could even afford the luxury of a penalty miss from Hannaford as she went for her hat-trick before penalty box predator Rowe completed her own first triple of the season with two second-half headers. 

Coach Timmons will now prepare his team for a Home Opener weekend that throws up two exciting clashes against Dalhousie and Acadia. Many feel that those two programs will join StFX and the CAPERS in the play-off shake-up come the end of October. 

"You just have to look at what was a very even Coaches' Poll in our division to know that there are a few teams who could win this AUS title," reasoned Ness. "Our first goal is simply to get into the Play-Off weekend and then see where we can go. 

"We are a little beat-up right now with injuries, but we have got ourselves through Weekend One and now we feel we can get others healthy again. Home Opener weekend is massive for us and we know we will have our community and our crowd behind us so we would love to have a full squad to entertain them all by then."