Ballarat North United will enter this weekend’s Ballarat District Soccer Association women’s division one preliminary final as underdogs against Warrnambool – but that will not faze it.
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North entered its elimination final against Ballarat Eureka Strikers last week looking to cause an upset – and it did.
While it will also draw confidence from a solid record against the Rangers, who lost 3-0 to Ballarat in the qualifying final.
Ballarat North United copped heavy losses in its first two encounters with Rangers, losing 5-2 and 5-1, but its last two have seen a 4-4 draw and a 4-3 win.
However, there was a key element missing from the Rangers side in the most recent encounters – Isabel Wilkinson.
Wilkinson has scored 34 goals this season, the second most in the league, and in Warrnambool’s two wins over North she kicked four and two goals respectively.
It’s difficult to shut them down for a whole game and just play a defensive game...we’ll certainly be trying to score as often as possible because they can score quickly.
- Ballarat North United coach Shane Kozaris
North coach Shane Kozaris said it would take a team effort to shut down the dominant player, but they could not afford to be too Wilkinson conscious.
“The whole defence has to help one another, one person may be singled out to keep an extra eye, but it’s the overall team.You can’t just work on one player, they have other dangerous players as well,” Kozaris said.
“We’ll be trying to keep our structure and hopefully we get the same outcome as we got last time we played them.”
The teams four matches this season have all been high-scoring affairs, Kozaris said while it was not ideal to get into a shootout with a side like Warrnambool, it would certainly not be looking to shut the game down.
“We’ll certainly be trying to score as often as possible because they can score quickly.
“It’s difficult to shut them down for a whole game and just play a defensive game, I don’t think that’s the way the girls would want to play either – we like to play the ball around and create scoring opportunities...we’ll be trying to do that.”
Ballarat North United will await the fitness of first-picked goalkeeper Morgan Sommers,
Sommers is under an injury cloud and is rated a “possible” chance to line-up on Sunday by Kozaris.
Kick-off is at 3pm at Morshead Park.
Meanwhile in the men’s division one, Warrnambool Rangers will take on Buninyong Redbacks at 5.40pm on Sunday.
