Rodney paces Huskies to season-opening win

Felicia Rodney scored the 55th and 56th goals of her ACAC career in a 3-0 win for the Keyano Huskies against The King's University Eagles Friday in Fort McMurray to open the 2023 Alberta Colleges Athletic Conference (ACAC) Women's Soccer Regular Season.

"I thought we started okay," Assistant Coach Brian Cook said. "We started to connect passes, but we couldn't just finish. We were having trouble getting up the field on the wings.

"Overall, it was kind of expected for the first game of the season. Hopefully they can rebound and put more of a complete game together tomorrow." 

With the Huskies keeping things secured on the defensive side of the ball, there was more room for offensive creativity from the team's attack. For their season opener however, there were still some kinks to work out with a few missed opportunities that could have changed the difference in the final result.

Rodney struck eight minutes into the contest and later scored in the 71st minute. Those goals bookended a lead strike set up by Natalie Orellana for Selena Arima, which the Huskie returnee had no problem burying for her first goal in a Huskies uniform.

"It's always good to see [Rodney] score," Cook said. "She's back on track from last year. The good thing about our team is we're relying on more than one person. We've got four or five people that can put the ball in the back of the net."

In net for the Huskies, rookie Delanie Berrette picked up the shutout and her first career ACAC victory in the same match. Though she wasn't tested with a shot on goal in the match, the goalkeeper helped keep the defence in front of her grounded and focused throughout the game as they worked well to snuff out chances for the Eagles early on. 

Isabelle King kept the Eagles in the match with a few timely saves for the visitors. 

With her two-goal performance in the match, Rodney is creeping up on Alesha Weicker, a star for the MacEwan University Griffins and Concordia Thunder in the mid-2000s, for second all-time in ACAC Women's Soccer scoring.

Arima earned Player of the Game honours for the Huskies while Lexa Steenhof was named the Player of the Game for the visiting Eagles. 

The two teams will reconvene at 12:00 p.m. on Saturday, September 9 for a rematch at Holy Trinity High School.