Richmond F.C. have shown their resiliency to take them where they have never gone before.
The U15 Metro girls soccer team will be playing in its first-ever Coastal “A” Cup final Sunday morning in Aldergrove against Delta Coastal Selects. Both teams are also headed to the Provincial “A” Cup Championships in early July in Burnaby — another first for the locals.
Delta earned its spot by beating Richmond in the dying seconds of a Metro Selects League tiebreaker game after the rivals finished deadlocked atop the standings with 13-6-3 records. The heartbreaking defeat meant Richmond had to win the Coastal Cup to get the other provincial berth.
The girls opened with a quarter-final win over Vancouver, then erased an early deficit to defeat Surrey Guildford United 3-1 in the semi-finals. Meanwhile, the Coastal Selects were taking care of business on their side of the draw to reach the championship game, meaning Richmond advances to Burnaby too regardless of Sunday’s result.
“When we sat down at the start of the season, all the girls agreed one of the goals would be reaching the provincials so they are pretty excited,” said Richmond FC head coach Sean Lawson. “That was a really tough loss to Delta and I can’t tell you how much they are looking forward to getting a chance to play them again.
“The entire league was very competitive this year with only seven points separating the top five teams. We gave up that early goal in the semi-finals and the girls just elevated their play and poured it on to score three times.”
This 2001 age group has been very competitive since Lawson began working with most of the players back at the micro level. Richmond had reached the quarter-finals of Coastal Cup playdowns the two previous years before falling to the Port Coquitlam Castilians each time. The defending champions were eliminated by Delta.
“This is a strong group of multi-sport athletes,” added Lawson. “A lot of them play field hockey, basketball and school soccer right now too.”
The team will continue training through the spring and play in a tournament down south as a tune-up for the Provincial Cup.
