Lady Lakers suffer first loss

The Nipissing Lady Lakers (1-1-3) gave the visiting Ottawa Gee Gees (3-0-1) all they could handle on this cold, wet and windy day however the visiting Gee Gees escaped with a 2-1 victory.

The one current theme so far in this young soccer season has been the miserable weather conditions creating some difficult playing conditions and it didn’t take long for that trend to continue Saturday. The rain started five minutes into the game and didn’t let up making playing conditions increasing difficult as the match wore on.

The Lady Lakers started the match well with a quality scoring chance five minutes in the game when Nicole Arromba stole a ball from the Gee Gee defender and fired a hard shot that just sailed over the cross bar.

Arromba would not have to wait long to exact some revenge as she tallied her second goal of the season after tapping a rebound which was mishandled by the Gee Gees keeper Melissa Pesant. The opportunity arose from a great run by striker Leesa Church who’s initial shot hit the cross bar.

Ottawa tied the game when a Lakers turn over resulted in a shot being fired by Sarah De Carufel which keeper Sam Behm slid to smother however the ball bounced away from her grasp and was tapped in by De Carufel.

Both teams settled in and were cautious as playing conditions deteriorated. The Lady Lakers and Gee Gees exchanged several chances however noting materials as the referee blew his whistle to signal half time.

In the second half Ottawa had a five minute burst that resulted in several quality scoring chances in which the first was stopped by Behm who challenge the Ottawa forward and cut off the angle to make a nice save. The second chance resulted in the eventual game winning goal that was scored when the Gee Gees pounced on a turnover in the midfield and was neatly sent it to Corina Jerret who made no mistake as she put past a helpless Behm.

Both teams kept the action to the midfield until the last 10 minutes of the game when the Lady Lakers pushed for the equalizer. The Lakers best chance came with 8 minutes remaining off of a corner kick which was cleared beyond the 18 yard box which was retrived by midfielder Krista Dermott and re-entered to Arromba who turned a fired a hard shot that hit the Ottawa keeper.

The final chance came in the dying minutes as a cross landed in the 18 yard box and a mad scrambled ensued however the referee blew his whistled and issued Lakers Valaine Confessor a caution to the dismay of the crowd.

The contest would finish soon after.

The Lady Lakers were scheduled to be back in action Sunday, September 18 at noon versus the Carleton Ravens but due to unfavourable field conditions, the game has been postponed.

Submitted to BayToday.ca