Men's Futsal Huskies take first regional tournament in stride
The improved competitiveness of Men's Futsal in the Alberta Colleges Athletic Conference (ACAC) taught a lesson to the Keyano Huskies over the weekend, one Head Coach Niels Slotboom is eager to have his student-athletes learn from.
A 2-3 record greeted the Huskies by the end of the first North Regional Tournament, with three one-goal losses placing the Huskies in an early hole in the North Division standings.
They did bounce back to win both games Sunday, keeping their playoff aspirations very much alive as they head back to the drawing board before the second and final Regional Tournament.
“To a certain point it was expected,” Slotboom said. “Our league has increasingly gotten more competitive, especially in the North. It just goes to show, there’s very little between the teams.
“Every single game, we’ve got to show up; we didn’t do that part. We didn’t take care of the details that we had full control over. I think that’s why we have a split weekend from not so great to very good. It’s something that we have to look at and come back from.”
A 4-3 loss to the Northwestern Polytechnic Wolves opened the tournament followed by a 2-1 loss to The King’s University Eagles and 3-2 result at the hands of the NAIT Ooks.
Sunday’s results favoured the Huskies as they became the lone team of the weekend to defeat the Lakeland Rustlers, doing so by a 2-1 final. They then wrapped up the weekend with a 7-3 win against the Portage College Voyageurs.
“There’s a significant difference between the execution of what we did and the consistency behind that on Friday in comparison to when we found the wins on Sunday,” Slotboom continued. “It’s challenging because all the games are tight, but that is the difference at a high level.
“It’s fine margins and we took care of those margins on Sunday when we didn’t on Friday and Saturday.”
Hafid Arellano led the Huskies offensively with five of the team’s 15 goals from the weekend. Mykyta Kudrin added three of his own while Dylan Stewart scored twice in Friday’s match.
The Huskies may be on the outside of the playoff picture heading into the second regional tournament, though Slotboom is confident in the path forward for his group.
“Every game has been competitive in the sense for we could’ve won it, even though we didn’t have a great execution of our game plan,” he said. “With that in mind, we have to make sure we now take care of that and that’s got to be the focus on what we do.”
The second ACAC North Regional Tournament will take place from February 21-23, hosted by Northwestern Polytechnic.