Late strike sends Aurora FC over West Ottawa

August 30, 2017 · 0 Comments

By Jake Courtepatte

A lone goal with under twenty minutes to spare was enough for the Aurora FC women to snap a two-game losing streak against West Ottawa SC on Saturday.
Courtney Chocol notched her third goal of the season in the 73rd minute to capture Aurora’s fourth win in six games, giving goalkeeper Meaghan Phillips her second clean sheet of the season.
Sitting at a record of 8-8-0 with the end of the regular season fast approaching, Aurora won the game while fielding mostly inexperienced, up-and-coming players.
“We had two 2002s in the team, our centre-back and our striker, who scored a goal, and we have a couple national team players in the team and at least 13 or 14 provincial players,” said Aurora team official Siamac Kavianpour. “We have a good group and we are trying to improve our program every day.”
Kavianpour was especially pleased with the play of Chocol, whose third goal of the season came in only her second game with the team.
“We had an aggressive run by our striker Courtney, and she made three or four runs like that tonight, which was a big reason we got the result.”
Aurora now takes a week’s break in the schedule before returning to action next Saturday against Durham United FA (7-6-3) at St. Maximilian Kolbe field.
The men’s side was on the wrong end of a 2 – 0 score against Durham on Saturday, their first action in two weeks after last Saturday’s matchup in Oshawa was postponed.
Durham took a 1 – 0 lead into the half after scoring at the 31st minute, though Aurora changed strategies after the break and nearly broke even.
“It was a tactical change,” said Aurora head coach Derek O’Keeffe.
“When they scored their first goal, we just wanted to be a bit more direct. We brought on Aidane (Elder), whose first game it was. He’s a big man so we just decided to go more route one football, try and knock it up to him. It nearly worked. We hit the post twice and I think we just caused them a lot more problems because we were tiring in the middle previously and not linking with the front men as we should have been.”
Durham cashed in again at the 65th minute, eventually earning the clean sheet.
The men sit at a record of 2-13-1 in their sophomore season, one point up on the last place Toronto Skillz FC.
They return to the pitch next Sunday after a week’s break to take on the North Toronto Nitros (9-5-3) on the road.