Soccer team plays exhibition against Team Ontario
The CMU soccer team will play a competitive scrimmage against the Under-17 Team Ontario team at noon Tuesday in Mount Pleasant.
The scrimmage takes place at the CMU Soccer Complex with a free barbeque for all who shows up.
Coach Tom Anagnost said he is hoping the scrimmage, along with the barbeque, will showcase the Central Michigan soccer program.
“They do this tour every year where they play four or five schools, and we are just fortunate to be one of them,” he said.
Anagnost said Ontario is rich in terms of soccer talent, and it is also a great chance to show some of the players Central is recruiting how CMU plays.
Team Ontario consists of many of the Canadian U-17 players with 11 of the 20 players on the national U-17 team coming from the Province.
The national U-17 team recently won the U-17 Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Association Football championship with Ontario native and midfielder Kinley McNicoll scoring the only goal within the first 10 minutes of the game.
Central has had its fair share of soccer players from Ontario — sophomores Laura Twidle and Ashley Mejilla being the most recent players and junior Chelsi Abbott being the third member of the team from the Province.
Twidle said she is excited to face a team she was once a part of and knows Team Ontario has always had a good reputation as being a great team.
“It is exciting to see what is being produced out from there in terms of talent,” she said. “I know they are really good, and it will be really good competition even though they are young.”
Twidle also said the team looks at this scrimmage as a great way to work on what they have been practicing during the offseason, especially since the team only has 15 players still on the team with the former seniors no longer playing.
“In the offseason, it is all practice for us,” she said. “I'm trying to focus on my weaknesses and, at the same time, combining them with my strengths.”
The Chippewas have scrimmaged multiple teams from around the region already this Spring, including Wisconsin for the second consecutive year, and takes on Michigan Saturday in Ann Arbor.
