Cochrane Lady Rangers take home Silver

On April 3rd 2009 the Cochrane Lady Rangers travelled to Lethbridge to take part in the 9th Annual Memorial Cup which is a soccer tournament that attracts talent from all over Alberta. Cochrane arrived on Friday night to face the Calgary Crusaders for the first of their four match ups. The message was sent out to the rest of the opposition as the Lady Rangers crusied to victory with a resounding 5-2 victory.
Saturday brought two new challenges in the form of the Edmonton Ice and the Calgary Furies. After falling a goal behind to the Ice, the Rangers battled hard and equalised early in the second half. With the match finely balanced, Cochrane broke free of the tight Edmonton defence and scored their second and winning goal. It was the perfect start to a tournament that has offered little reward to the Lady Rangers in recent years.
Pitted against another Calgary team on Saturday night, in the shape of the Furies, Cochrane were trying to extend their winning streak to three. The game started cautiously with both teams needing the win to stay in contention. The Furies took the lead early in the first half with a strong free kick but the Rangers responded quickly by stepping up the tempo of the game and it paid off when they squaked an equaliser over the line just before the half time interval. The second half was frantic and saw the Furies win an arguable penalty that was susequently converted, to Cochrane's dismay. That spelled the end of the winning streak as the Furies fired home two more quick goals before Rangers claimed a consolation late on.
Tied for second place, Cochrane Rangers knew that a win could only tie them for first at best, but a loss could see them fall as low as 4th. They fought hard against a very determined and skilled team from Medicine Hat, the Subway Strikers. The pace of the game was remarkable as two tired teams duked it out late on Sunday night. At half time the game looked over as Medicine Hat walked off holding a commanding two goal lead. With 25 minutes left to play, the Rangers conjured up some magic and played with immense heart as they lived the mantra "never give up". Rangers first goal of the game wasn't pretty but Laura Pecharsky pulled them back to within one of 'The Hat". It still looked all but over for Cochrane with time swiftly running out, but with only a few minutes remaining a sublime piece of skill gave Amy Paul the space she needed to slot home a beautiful left foot strike that tied the game and gave Cochrane Lady Rangers the second place overall finish that they deserved.

Squad (left to right)
Back Row: Jason Petrovic, Janeen Williamson, Sarah Williamson, Laura Pecharsky, Amy Paul, Alana Staples, Ayla Ownes, Tristan Norman
Front Row: Chesley Fricker, Megan Teghtmeyer, Shari Shigehiro, Lisa Murray, Sarah Stott and Goalie Stacey Wells

Rangers kick it in Vegas!

Cochrane Rangers recently organised two teams to travel and compete in a soccer tournament hosted by the Soccer Resort (socceresort.com). The tournament was held on March 6th and 7th in the Summerlins community which is on the Western side of Las Vegas, NV.

The tournament itself offers Men's, Women's, Co-ed, and Over 45's competition. We submitted two teams in the co-ed division which consisted of mainly Cochrane Rangers Players. We entered as the Cochrane Chugglers and the Cochrane Rangers. Both teams had a good tournament but appeared to suffer the effects of arriving 2 days early in the City of Sin as we both had a slow start. Both teams were placed in the same division and in a battle of the Cochranites, the chugglers triumphed 2-0 over the rangers. The Chugglers and the Rangers finished 4th and 5th respectively.
However, the Cochrane teams didn't go away empty handed as they picked up two team awards. The Chugglers received the award for the best Party team and the Rangers picked up the award for the Funnest team!

Cochrane Lady Rangers Open

In a challenging season of indoor soccer, the Cochrane Lady Rangers finished their season with heads held high finishing 3rd place overall in Division 4B of the CWSA soccer league
For the first time, Cochrane was host to half of the regular season games at Spray Lakes Sawmills Family Sports Centre.

The Lady Rangers experienced the joys of success after dominating the standings in first place for all of 2008 while recording only a single loss in 9 games, although 2009 was a different story. The competition upped their game and pushed the Rangers to the wire. Recording 12 wins in 18 games overall the Lady Rangers were vying for a playoff spot to catapult them back into Division three, a position that has not been held since 2006.
Winning their final game of the season, the Lady Rangers beat the Blizzard Angels 3-2 at home in front of a boisterous Cochrane crowd. Sadly it proved too little too late as fierce rivals the NCU Wildcats recorded a 4-1 victory over the Crusaders to leapfrog the Rangers into second place by only one point, in the process, earning themselves a playoff game to challenge for promotion to Division 3.
With pride and confidence brimming, the Lady Rangers will now be focussing their attentions to pre-season training in preparation for the upcoming outdoor season that kicks off in May. The club is pleased to announce that they are entering a new Ladies team into Division 6 in response to the growing levels of interest in community sport in Cochrane. We wish the new Cochrane Lady Rangers 3 all the best in their quest for success!