Canowindra High Schools senior girls soccer team played the round 16 state game on Wednesday 24th June, against Burwood after being the Western Region winners.
Burwood came out hard and got 2 quick goals against Canowindra in the first 15 minutes. The girls finally showed some attack as Becky Thornberry took a penalty close to the goal passing it off to Hayley White to crack one high and into the back of the net. Canowindra couldn’t keep up as Burwood got a few more goals making the score 51 at half time.
The second half Canowindra High didn’t give up. Ashley Mclean made a lot of ground getting the ball into our attacking half. Hayley White was motoring the whole time covering the right side of the field as she was committed with every play. Alana Smith and Alana Crama played well as they both continued attacking hard and Amelia Holmes made some great saves in goal. Kelly Price was strong in defense making the effort to be the first to the ball to gain the attacking advantage.
With the last 20 minutes to go Canowindra fought even harder with Becky having a few cracks at goal until securing one off a penalty kick making the score 62. Getting another one on the board gave the whole team a boost and they started to play like a team again.
It wasn’t long before Ashley smashed the ball through defense from half way offloading the ball to Becky to then set up Joanna Balcombe for a goal. With the score 63 Canowindra kept fighting with only 10 minutes to go. Meg Austin made some good runs and attacked hard but unfortunately the whistle blew and sounded the end of the game.
Canowindra High School have made a massive achievement to get to this level of the competition which hasn’t been done in years. Coach Mr Jones says, “20 more minutes and we could have had them, playing this game is a great experience as is it showed us what we need to do to play at a state level”.
By Taneil Thornberry