Soccer
The RDC soccer teams had mixed results as they opened their Alberta Colleges Athletic Conference season on the road during the weekend.
The Kings opened with a 2-0 win over the Medicine Hat Rattlers Saturday, but dropped a 3-1 decision to the Lethbridge Kodiaks Sunday.
Meanwhile, the Queens lost 3-0 to the Rattlers and tied Lethbridge 2-2.
Mark Ibbotson and Nolan Hamilton scored for the Kings against the Rattlers.
“We didn’t start that well, but picked it up in the second half,” said Kings head coach Steve Fullarton. “We did a good job when we had the ball, but we need to make some adjustments when we don’t have it.”
On Sunday, Chase Grenier scored for the Kings, who trailed 1-0 at the half and 3-0 midway through the second half.
“Once again we played much better the second half,” said Fullarton, who was playing without team scoring leader Hamilton. “In fact we had a couple of excellent opportunities to score early in the second half, but couldn’t convert.
“We’ll have to settle for the one win, but it’s more or less back to the drawing board so we can be ready for SAIT next weekend.”
RDC hosts SAIT Saturday with the women kicking off at noon and the men to follow.
The Queens were in tough against an experienced Medicine Hat side, who have a number of fourth and fifth year players.
“They’re solid, but we had a couple of chances and just needed to convert,” said Queens head coach Dave Colley. “Adi Moyer hit the cross bar when it was 0-0, then we got a little sloppy on a corner kick and they jumped on it for the lead.
“I wasn’t happy with the loss, but we did improve from the first to the second half,” Colley said.
On Sunday, the Queens opened the scoring on an own goal, then after Lethbridge tied it in the second half on a free kick Kayla Blacquiere made it 2-1 for RDC with 10 minutes left.
“We should have held the lead, but late in the game we gave up a corner kick and the girls on the back post got standing around and watching and they evened it That was disappointing as we gave away two points.”
Queens hockey
The RDC Queens opened their exhibition season with three wins at the NAIT mini-tournament during the weekend.
The Queens defeated the St. FX Academy of Edmonton 5-2, Lloydminster Steelers 4-0 with Camille Trautman recording the shutout and the Sherwood Park Fury 8-1.
“We played three midget teams, but the nice thing was we got a chance to work on a few things,” said Queens head coach Bob Rutz. “We got to work on our D-zone and forechecking and I thought it went well. It would have been nice to play some older teams, but that will come.”
The Queens will visit the University of Saskatchewan next weekend and then play Team Alberta of the Canadian Women’s Hockey League.
drode@www.reddeeradvocate.com