This week’s B.C. AAA Girls Soccer Championships will provide a sneak preview of what should be an excellent new rivalry.
The South Delta Sun Devils and McMath Wildcats will square off on Wednesday afternoon in round-robin play at the 16-team event being held at the Cloverdale Athletic Park.
The two schools will see plenty of each other in the years ahead thanks to major zone realignment by B.C. School Sports that splits Metro Vancouver into four regions. The new Fraser South Zone will feature Surrey, Richmond and Delta schools contending for provincial berths.
There already was a friendly rivalry established in recent years thanks to longtime SDSS teacher/coach and Richmond resident Stephen Burns guiding both teams for a three-year stint while his daughter Ali was attending McMath.
Now both programs are going through somewhat of a youth movement while still enjoying plenty of success.
The Wildcats continued their dominance in the Vancouver/Richmond Zone playoffs by edging Kitsilano to earn one final title. Their roster features a number of Grade 9s from the recently crowned U15 Coastal “A” Cup champion Richmond Strikers. Senior talent includes Fusion FC’s Morgan Flynn who is taking her career to the University of Idaho next fall.
The Sun Devils also have some solid your talent that helped them finish third at the provincials a year ago and take fourth place in the recent Fraser Valley playoffs. Their attack is led by senior Breanne Gallagher — a four-year team member who scored the winning goal at U17 Nationals last fall for Coastal FC and is headed to the University of Calgary. She is the sister of Montreal Canadiens star Brendan Gallagher.
Joining South Delta and McMath in their pool group are Handsworth (North Vancouver) and Claremont (Victoria). Only the pool group winner advances to the semi-finals.
McMath opens play Wednesday morning (9 a.m.) against Claremont while the Sun Devils take on Handsworth at the same time. The teams then meet at 12:30 p.m. before concluding round-robin play on Thursday morning.
The semi-finals are slated for 2:15 p.m. Thursday and placement games go Friday, including the final at 11:15 a.m.
Corner kicks…
The McRoberts Strikers will conclude their season at the B.C. “AA” Championships in Campbell River, starting on Thursday. The Strikers are in a round-robin group that includes St. Thomas More, Ballenas (Parksville) and LV Rogers (Nelson). That tournament concludes on Saturday.
