WINNIPEG –
Maya Turner hopes her historic accomplishment will encourage different ladies who dream of kicking down limitations to play males’s soccer at a excessive degree.
Turner grew to become the primary lady to play and rating in a regular-season U Sports activities soccer sport on Saturday.
The College of Manitoba kicker made two subject objectives, together with the game-winner in extra time, within the Bisons’ 27-24 victory over the College of Regina Rams at IG Discipline.
“It exhibits that if you wish to play soccer on any group it may be carried out,” Turner stated in a telephone name Sunday after group conferences.
“Should you’re adequate to compete at that degree and also you discover a group that appreciates you for the athlete and the participant that you’re, you possibly can obtain that.
“I believe it helps seeing different ladies do it, simply to see that it’s doable.”
Turner, from Maple Grove, Minn., made historical past with a 21-yard subject objective at 5:18 of the second quarter to file her first factors and provides Manitoba a 3-2 lead.
Her excited teammates tapped her helmet and slapped her on the again as she went again to the sideline.
Bisons head coach Brian Dobie additionally known as her over and had a particular congratulations for an achievement he’ll always remember.
“It was a type of moments in time, it actually was,” stated Dobie, who’s been the college’s head coach since 1996.
“I went over to her and I put my fingers on her shoulders and we have been inches aside and I am her and I simply went, `Maya, I am so pleased for you. I am so pleased with you and I would like you to know I am saying that as the top coach of the college soccer group and I am saying that as a father of a daughter. Good for you.”‘
Then, with the homecoming sport tied 24-24 in extra time, Turner booted one other 21-yard subject objective to offer Manitoba the lead. The Bisons defence held robust and Rams kicker Andrew Sweeney missed a 45-yard field-goal try that sealed the win for Manitoba.
Turner was additionally good on all three converts for a complete of 9 factors within the sport that gave Manitoba its first win of the season (1-3) and dropped the Rams to 1-3.
“All of these have been undoubtedly must-make so there was, clearly, a little bit of stress,” she stated. “It was simply such a rush after (the second subject objective) went in.
“The group and the coaches and everybody was celebrating. It was simply such an awesome feeling that was in contrast to something I might ever skilled earlier than.”
Turner had beforehand turn into the primary lady to attain factors in a U Sports activities sport when she kicked a 25-yard subject objective in a Bisons pre-season sport final yr in opposition to the College of Saskatchewan.
Earlier than becoming a member of the Bisons, she performed NCAA Division I soccer for Loyola College in Chicago. She left the group in her second season in August 2021 to attempt one thing completely different. The college did not have a soccer group, however she determined to check out for a membership soccer squad.
She loved the brand new sport and went to kicking camps. One coach helped her put collectively video and he or she despatched movie to dozens of colleges in america and a few in Canada early final yr, together with to Dobie’s desk.
“We have been very cautious as a result of we weren’t getting sport movie,” Dobie stated. “Her movie regarded actually good, it actually did — the sound of the ball coming off her foot, the flight of the ball. She’s a really true kicker. She kicks a straight ball.”
He introduced her in for a tryout in April 2022. A couple of dozen curious gamers watched her kick in opposition to the group’s soon-to-be-graduating kicker, Cole Sabourin. She impressed on the chilly, breezy day.
“She was flatout extra correct than he was,” Dobie recalled. “As soon as it received to kicks within the 44-, 45-yard vary, now he began to win the battles.”
He signed her that day along with her mother and father by her aspect. She red-shirted in the course of the 2022 season and improved this season, thanks partly to Winnipeg Blue Bombers placekicker Sergio Castillo serving to the Bisons kickers a couple of times every week.
The plan this season was to have Bisons kicker/punter Vinny De Rosa try subject objectives over 40 yards and Turner would go for the shorter kicks, Dobie stated.
Recreation planning associated to particular groups did not enable Turner to play in Manitoba’s first sport of the season at dwelling. She was additionally left off the roster for the group’s following two highway video games as a result of highway rosters have 5 much less gamers and De Rosa additionally punted, Dobie stated.
Turner received the information final week she and De Rosa would play in Saturday’s sport, which was further thrilling as a result of her mother and father, grandparents and older sister already deliberate to drive from Minnesota for the sport.
After the victory, Dobie addressed the group within the locker room and gave Turner a sport ball. The balls from her historic first kick and the successful subject objective are being stored by the college in case they go right into a corridor of fame in the future, Dobie stated.
Turner stated her ball is inside her locker on the college, which is a transformed massive washroom along with her title plate on the door throughout from the group assembly room. It was a setup the group organized for the five-foot-nine, 150-pound kicker, who’s the second feminine to make the Bisons soccer roster.
Defensive again Reina Iizuka grew to become the primary feminine U Sports activities soccer participant when she was on Manitoba’s roster from 2018-20, however she by no means wearing a regular-season sport.
Turner stated her teammates have welcomed her from the start.
“I undoubtedly really feel revered by them as simply one other teammate,” she stated. “They’re actually supportive of me. I could not ask for a greater group atmosphere.”
And that is what Dobie is hoping for in his program.
“As a coach, we’re supposed to show Xs and Os and strategies and all of that, after all,” he stated. “However I believe on the college degree we’re additionally chargeable for educating life. I really feel strongly about that.
“I believe it has been a extremely nice course of for the younger males on this program. I am actually pleased with them.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first revealed Sept. 24, 2023.