Pilots women’s soccer team aiming for 2nd American national championship

Catalina Hickey authored a storybook ending to the National Christian Colleges Athletic Association’s women’s soccer North Regional finals for the Providence Pilots Nov. 13 in Minnesota.

Just a couple weeks after her penalty kick to tie the match in the Manitoba final was stopped, Hickey got another chance, as head coach Tory Walker selected her as the final shooter when the finals came down to penalty kicks.

Hickey made no mistake, placing the ball into the top-right corner, giving the Pilots a victory.

She powered the ball past Crown College’s keeper, who managed to get a touch on the shot, but it was too high and too fast for a stop.

“It was really nice we got the opportunity to have her have redemption,” Walker said, his voice hoarse from celebrating after the championship.

“She stepped up and smashed it… It was really great.”

It wasn’t the only smart line-up decision Walker made in penalty kicks. He added goalkeeper Jaden Hickey as a substitute with five minutes remaining in extra time. Walker called Jaden the team’s “penalty kick specialist.”

“We had all of our stats for goalies, we had all of our penalty kick takers and their stats,” he said.

“We knew if we got to (penalties), we’d be pretty confident.”

Walker added the team has been practicing penalty kicks in the last four weeks to prepare for finals in the States and Canada.

The Pilots showed resilience throughout the four-team North region tournament, falling behind 1-0 in their semi-final against Minneapolis-based North Central University, despite dominating possession. The team would storm back to nab three second-half goals for a convincing victory.

Providence also fell behind in the final, giving up a first-half penalty before tying the game 1-1 in the second half once again. Extra time solved nothing, as the two teams had to battle for 120 minutes after playing the day before.

Walker was confident the Pilots’ depth would shine through despite the “brutal” schedule.

“It’s a dream to coach a team like that, which just believes in themselves and keeps going,” he said.

“We have a pretty deep team, and so we had to start going down the bench to keep playing the way we wanted to.”

All three Pilots keepers saw action in the tournament, with an injury early in the semi-final.

The Providence women’s soccer team is looking for another NCCAA championship, after winning in 2022. They went straight from Minnesota to Florida and were relaxing before the start of the tournament Nov. 19.

The team’s coaching staff has already begun breaking down film on their competition.

“We’re here for business,” Walker said.

“We’ll have some fun on the off-days, but aside from that, the team’s pretty focused.”

Providence are the second seed at the six-team national championships, in a pool with Michigan-based Great Lakes Christian College (3rd) and Oklahoma-based Randall University (6th). The Pilots will need to win their group to advance to the finals.

Ava Temple, Dakota Bear and Halle Owen were named to the all-North region team, with Holly Fullerton, Laurianne Chiasson, Bella Geith and Amieka de Klein earning honourable mention nods.

The Pilots fell short in the men’s regional final. Despite being ranked at the top team heading into the tournament, they were upset by fourth-ranked North Central 2-0 in the semi-finals.

Johannes Barnes, Isaac Aman, Rashard Hibbert, Karan Bhangu were recognized as all North-region honourable mentions. Joel Umeh was named as the NCCAA North Region’s player of the year.