Sabres soccer playing in Foothills Athletic League

The St. Anthony’s Sabres girls soccer team has gained access to the competitive Foothills Athletic Soccer League, and has a tough schedule coming up.

This is the second year for a girls soccer program at the school, and are finding good success. This year they entered the league along with Canmore. It also has teams in Highwood High School in High River, Holy Trinity Academy out of Okotoks, Foothills Composite out of Okotoks and Strathmore High School. All the teams are 3A schools or higher. St. Anthony’s by contrast is a 1A school with a much smaller population to draw upon.

“We played these teams last year, and it is the only way we get better,” said head coach Gavin Makse.

He adds that having the Rage U16 community team last soccer season has helped the squad immensely.

“I am a true believe the better competition you play, the better you become, the more you learn. You are not going to learn much by beating teams you know you can beat,” said Makse.

The team opened their season against Canmore on Thursday, September 17, in Springbank, and fought to a close 2-0 defeat.

“It was a good competitive game, it was pretty even,” said Makse. “They are like us in that their team is the same as their U18 community team. We were a U16 so we were slightly younger.”

“We’ll be there eventually, it will just take a while.”

He is happy the team was accepted into the league.

“We just want to grow the sport,” he said.

The Sabres are hosting their annual tournament on October 2 and 3, and have six teams coming to the event; With five teams from the league attending, plus Chestermere.

The Sabres’ home opener is this Thursday at the Drumheller soccer pitch versus Strathmore.