IMPROVED PLAY PROVIDES REASON FOR OPTIMISM FOR WOMEN’S FUTSAL TEAM

GRANDE PRAIRIE – Progress is sometimes measured in small steps, putting one foot in front of the other. Or, in the case of the Portage College Voyageurs, one fut-sal in front of the other.

The Women's Futsal squad played its first regional away from home in more than two years and showed considerable progress on the long journey toward building a team capable of competing for the ACAC championship. Five weeks after hosting the first northern regional and being outscored 37-3 in five matches, the Voyageurs travelled to Grande Prairie Feb. 21-23 and put forward a much strong showing. Although they didn't win any games, they played much stronger defence and were in at least three of the five contests they played right until the final buzzer, losing 2-0 to Northwestern Polytechnic (NWP), 2-0 to The King's University and 5-0 to Lakeland College. Head Coach Macky Singh was pleased with his players' performance.

"Even the game against Lakeland, our first game, it was 1-nil for the whole first half and then we just ran out of legs. They ended up scoring four in the last five minutes…We had a small squad," he said.

Despite not scoring any goals at the NWP-hosted regionals, Singh actually felt the Voyageurs had more opportunities to score than at the first regional tournament in Lac La Biche which conversely helped improve their defensive zone play as well.

"We worked on our fitness and just worked on our focus and concentration and worked on our defensive play as well which allowed us to maintain the ball more on the attacking side," he said. "Even though we didn't score, (at) the Grande Prairie regionals compared to the one we hosted, I think we had more attacking potential than we did (before) so yeah, it was a good progression for our program."

With the futsal season over for his squad, the veteran head coach can now concentrate 100 per cent on finalizing his roster for the 2025 soccer and 2026 futsal seasons. Singh is hopeful this year serves as a building block and that the program is on more stable footing in the years to come.

"On the women's side, we're rebuilding," he said. "We've got four returning (players) and then we've got recruits coming into the program so, you know, in a year or two, you'll see the women's (program)…have a significant amount of returning players that can play. It'll be long term as well."