Their season started off with a tryout consisting of 8 girls in attendance outside in the snow. Ms. Spink recalls laughing with the boys’ coach because he canceled their teams’ tryout, as she joked that the girls are tougher than the boys. She didn’t know at that moment just how tough those girls were. The team is one of a true underdog story. Port High hadn’t won a soccer game, let alone scored a goal in a couple of years. We had a rough run during our regular season, where we won 2 games, but lost 4. Luckily, we were able to go to the zone final as we were part of the only 2 teams in our zone. That is where the determination and toughness of these girls flourished. We faced off against Saint Jean de Brebeuf, who beat us twice in the regular season, and absolutely dominated that game, won it, and became zone champions. Winning zone led us to SOSSA, where we were crowned the champions after facing off against Heritage Christian in the semi finals and Hamilton District Christian in the finals. Their remarkable skill coupled with their perseverance allowed us to make our OFSAA debut for the first time. This team is made up of OPDL soccer players, regional soccer players, house league players, and some people who haven’t even played soccer before, but each and every one of them stepped onto the field and put in the work to be SOSSA champions and achieve a spot at OFSAA for the first time in Port High history, where they finished 8th amongst 16 of the best in the province. They took the time to attend practices, ask questions when they didn’t know something, and stayed after practice and came on weekends to continue developing their skills. We wanted to make sure we took the time to recognize the talent and hard work of each of our players on that team, not just the award winners tonight, because if we could, we would give out an award to all the players for how incredible they are.