After analysing the first game against Stevenson, the Cougars had game plans for several variations in what Stevenson might do. We predicted that they would play the same as the first game, and we made adjustments to our line-up accordingly. Ryann moved to an central attacking midfield position, April took responsiblity for the left, and Danielle had the right. We put Kate Wright up as striker, and she performed perfectly. Meredith and Blair played as holding midfields, alternately making penetrating runs in attacking support. Our back four remained the same as previous games, with Maggie on the right, Sam and Katie in the center, and Kaitlin on the left. Tremendous attacking and defending work from all four. When April was injured in the second half, Sarah Luksik came in for a while. Then Laura Wright took over Meredith's holding midfielder position, Meredith went out on the right and Danielle took over the left. The Cougars dominated!

In the 21st minute Kate Wright took a diagonal pass from Blair, went straight through the middle beating both the Stevenson sweeper and goalie to open the scoring. Stevenson rallied fiercely for the next ten minutes, then the Cougars took control again until the half.

The second half opened much as the first, with the cougars having a little more possession. In the 50th minute, Stevenson attacked down the right wing, sending a long ball across our goal mouth, a Stevenson jersey was pulled, and a penalty kick awarded. A well placed shot had the game tied. Despite all the Cougar possession, the game was now tied, and the pressure was on!

At the 57th minute, Ryann took possession of the ball off of a weak goal kick from Stevenson, rocketed toward the goal, beat a defender and then the goalie to put the Cougars back in charge.

Stevenson's intensity seemed to drop a little with the second goal, but the game remained tough and tense. April came out about the 60th minute after a hard tackle knocked her down and she hurt her shoulder. The depth on the Cougar's bench was such that Sarah Luksik was able to take over and keep Stevenson in check down that side of the field. With about 10 minutes left, Ryann had another great breakaway into the Stevenson penalty area, but was slammed to the ground by a charging defender. Incredibly, not only did the referee not give us a penalty, but awarded possession to the other team! The Cougars deserved another goal, but were quite content to settle for the 2 - 1 win.

GO COUGARS!