Eager Steel ready for new season

By Lethbridge Herald on April 26, 2024.

Herald Photo by Justin Seward Lethbridge Steel's Miranda Green tackles the ring during practice on Thursday at Catholic Central High School

By Justin Seward

Lethbridge Herald

The Lethbridge Steel female football team kick into a new season  today with a sense of eagerness and wanting to get better as a team.

“[I am] throwing a lot at them and they’re just super eager to learn, super eager to get better,” said new head coach Matthew Sentes, who was with the team previously between 2013-2018 in various positions.

“We were in Regina last weekend for an exhibition game and there’s a ton of really amazing building blocks to build on and keep growing from moving forward as we start our regular season this week.”

A better sense of organization is what Sentes wants to bring to the team.

“And really having this team have fun and have the players have fun at practice,” said Sentes.

“If they are having fun, they’re going to want to be around, be more eager to learn and whether it’s through what I’ve been doing or what the players have been doing themselves, they seem to be having fun, seem to be enjoying it and as a result they’ve really been growing because of that.”

Sentes said they’re going to find success just because they want to play for each other so much.

“They’re all so passionate for playing together, playing as a unit, having almost  as close to a family-like environment as you can be on a team and that’s  something that gets thrown around way too much for my liking,” said Sentes.

“But in this case it’s really true where we actually have a pair of sisters on the team and we have a mother-daughter combination on this team. So there’s literal family elements here and then the rest of the team just bonds and gets along very well [with] each other and that’s going to just lead to a lot of competition.”

A good sign for the team this year is their numbers are up to 28.

“So that’s nice but … 28 for such a physical sport, is not a lot,” he said.

 So just  really managing those rotations, making sure everybody’s in good shape, so that they can play as many snaps as they’re going to need to play.”

Sentes wants to see overall execution improve as the season goes on.

“We’re quite raw because we have a lot of players that have never played football before, never watched  football before, said Sentes.

During the game in Regina, Sentes said a lot of light bulbs clicked.

“We’re like, ‘OK this is what this game’s like,’ and this is how we have to prepare.”

Danyka Bobinec is a captain and is confident they’ll score a touchdown and win a game this year.

“Our goal is just really pushing each other, and leaning towards each other and just working together as a team,” said Bobinec.

The Steel host the Calgary Rage in the home/season opener today at 2 p.m. at University of Lethbridge Community Stadium.