Going For Gold

#1 VIU Mariners vs. #3 Douglas Royals – SUNDAY OCTOBER 26, 12:00pm | WATCH HERE

The PACWEST women’s soccer gold medal will be determined Sunday afternoon when the top seeded Mariners meet the third seeded Royals with the winner advancing to the CCAA national championship.

The Mariners were simply awesome this season as the only team to reach the 10-win plateau and scored an impressive 34 goals with four players in the top five in Conference scoring.  Jada Kamerman recorded seven goals during the regular season and had countless assists setting up the likes of Emma Thornton, Courtney Ingram and Mary Nicholls. 

Just as impressive as their offence was their backline allowing just five goals all year with keeper Kaiden Thorpe recording eight clean sheets and was named a Conference All-Star.

They come into this gold medal game unbeaten in six which includes four straight wins, allowing one goal over this stretch.  That goal was scored by the Royals in the final regular season game.

During the seasonal series they met four times with the Mariners winning three of them and the other finished in a scoreless draw.  The Mariners outscored the Royals 8-2.

Saturday afternoon the Royals found a way to win their semi-final in penalty kicks.  They were down 3-2 in extra time, pushed the play and found the equalizer in a mad scramble with time ticking away to force the PKs.  With four goals they punched their ticket to this gold medal game and a battle with VIU for the first time since 2022.

They face an uphill matchup against the Conference’s top seeded team and will look to some of their leaders to set the pace. Isabelle Dobbin, Ashlynn Grim, Anna Klaver-Valdez and keeper Vanessa Chung will need to play a major role if the third seed wants any hope of creating an upset.

The winner will represent the PACWEST at the CCAA national championship in a week and a half hosted in Red Deer, Alberta.