CORNER BROOK It's back-to-back titles for the Bud Light Shamrocks.
The Shamrocks won the Corner Brook Molson Women's Soccer League championship crown for the second-straight season with a 3-2 victory over Veitch Physio Monday night.
Karen Pottie redirected a kick with her head into the cage past Veitch keeper Julia Robbins at 72 minutes to seal the deal for the Shamrocks.
Erika Girardin and Brianne Carey both scored goals on penalty kicks for the winners.
Janine Gillis scored both goals for the opposing bench.
Natasha Bellows of the Shamrocks said she expected big things from her teammates after the team put it all together to win the regular season title.
"Even though they put up a really good fight I think we really felt we had to win after finishing that good this year," Bellows said.
She was pleased to see the team rewarded for their hard work and she credited both teams for giving a good account of themselves.
"Everybody on both teams played really hard, but at the end of the day we ended up scoring more," Bellows said. "You could tell that they wanted it so bad in the second half. They were having some good shots, but we had our goalie Olivia Rogers back for the championship game."
According to Bellows, a number of the young players on the team have played soccer together for a number of years in the minor soccer ranks so they had some chemistry working on their side.
"They meshed really well together so I think that really helped our team," she said of the handful of teammates who once toiled for the city's Under-18 team.
Veitch scoring star Janine Gillis took solace in knowing two of the goals given up were a direct result of penalty shots and not from a lack of effort.
"We did really good and it shows our goals that we had came from actual plays," she said. "It was just unfortunate that we got those hand balls against us."
"The Shamrocks were No. 1 in the league so we came in knowing they were going to be tough and hard to it so we did the same thing," Gillis added. "We played hard and we definitely had some good shots."
