Patrick Kolafa
The Drumheller Mail

    The St. Anthony’s Sabres Senior girl’s soccer team showed poise in their first game of the season hosting Strathmore Wednesday afternoon.
    The team has been together for the last few years and this season has moved up to the senior high level. Other schools have more established programs and it showed as Strathmore jumped out to a big lead early.
      Strathmore quickly put up seven goals in early, before Brooklyn Davies scored on a penalty kick to make the score 7-1 at the half.
    “At half time I told the girls, I really don’t care about the score,” said coach Gavin Makse. “All we want to do is win the second half.”
    He said there were a few simple adjustments they needed to make  to get them back in the game.
    “They were older and bigger than us and we maybe were a little bit intimidated because they were beating us to every ball. But I knew we had more speed, so I challenged them to win every ball,” said Makse.
    It worked, as the Sabres scored three to Strathmore’s one to win the second half. Davies had a hat trick and Kayla Finkbiner scored. Final score, 8-4.
    The game was a good warm up for the fifth annual Sabres Invitational tournament this coming Friday, September 26. The Sabres will be hosting Notre Dame, Cochrane and Strathmore.
    Coach Makse says last season they were able to beat Notre Dame once, and Cochrane has always had a strong program. He is looking forward to playing Strathmore.
    “Our goal is to beat them. Our girls got enough confidence out of this game today that we could do that,” said Makse.
    St. Anthony’s first take to the field at 9 a.m. versus Strathmore, noon versus Cochrane and 3 p.m. versus Notre Dame in the round robin tournament.

With the preseason behind them, the Drumheller Dragons are tasked with putting together another successful season, and they have high expectations.
    The Dragons are following up their most successful season ever, going all the way to the AJHL final.
    The 2014-2015 season starts this Saturday, September 6 for the Dragons when they head to Calgary to play the Canucks.
    “We had a really good year last year and we don’t want to fall into a rut. It was such a great ride, we don’t want to sit back on our laurels,” said coach Brian Curran. “We’re trying to get the kids to understand we have quite a mission ahead of us. We want to go back to the finals, we want to win the finals. My goal has always been to put a championship team together every year. That is our goal and we certainly think we have a good start to it.”
    With a handful of preseason games behind them, coach Curran likes what he sees, with a solid number of vets, and some new blood. He credits the thorough job the Dragons’ scouts have done.
    “We are always going to think we want more, but at the end of the day, for us, I like us from the back-out,” said Curran. “Curtis Skip will be our starter, he had a very good camp.”    
    On defense, he says they are waiting on a couple players who are at major junior camps, but there is some depth.
    “For us we have some surprises on defense with some of younger players, who are doing well,” said Curran. “Our forwards are getting better. We had six or seven coming back from last year and we added on some good pieces to the puzzle.”
    He said it is going to be another very competitive season, especially in the Viterra South.
    “The South is definitely open to take a run at it. I think we are one of the teams that are right there.  There is going to be a lot of parity,” said Curran.
    He is proud of last season’s efforts, and every year sets his sights on winning a championship.
    “I won’t sit back and accept mediocrity. My goal this year for the team is to win a championship. It was amazing to watch the community support we had last year and I think people enjoyed it, we want to do it again,” said Curran.
    “The fans came out and said ‘we really enjoy this kind of hockey.’ Now we want to finish it. We want to put a team out there that is very successful, and have everybody enjoy the product we put on the ice and support and be proud of the team we have here.”
    The Dragons’ home opener is Friday, September 12 when they host the Calgary Mustangs.