Gorge FC’s soon-to-be premier women’s team came within a goal of winning the provincial soccer Leeta Sokalski Cup B Cup title on Saturday only to fall 2-1 to the Burnaby Selects.
It was one of six provincial soccer finals held at Westhills and Goudy fields in Langford. The only other local squad representing was also a Gorge FC women’s team, which fell 3-0 in the Women’s Classics to the Coastal FC Supra.
It was the B Cup that Gorge nearly won, however.
Tied 1-1 and about 15 minutes into the second half, the B Cup final looked to turn in Gorge’s favour when Burnaby took a red card and went down to 10 players.
But before Gorge could take advantage, Burnaby struck on a miscue to take a 2-1 lead.
From there on it was all Gorge.
“(Burnaby) hung on for dear life. We were the better team for the last 30 minutes and weren’t missing by much,” Gorge coach Rick Zaharia said.
“It was very exciting to watch, we created so many opportunities, we just didn’t finish them.”
The former coach of the Victoria Highlanders women’s reserves team will return to guide the Gorge team in 2013-14 as it is promoted to the premier division of the Lower Island Women’s Soccer Association from Div. 1.
Tryouts are in early August.
Zaharia expects the Gorge team will gain interest from premier level players.
“We’ll want to take some on to be competitive but we also want to have a balance with the players that got the team into this tier,” he said.
Tegan Lang scored Gorge’s goal on Saturday.
sports@vicnews.com