Argyle was selected as the host school for the 2013 AAA provincial championship tournament and that means the perennial powerhouse will get an automatic bid no matter what happens in the next month of regular season and playoff action. The Pipers, however, have no intention of coasting on the hosting. In fact, when the best in B.C. descend on North Vancouver's Inter River Park, Argyle plans on being the team to beat.
"We're approaching it the same way we would any other season," said head coach Darren Rath. "For me throughout the season it's about developing and creating positive play and proper work ethic. Always working on training the way you're supposed to train, playing the way you're supposed to play - not just coast through, because you can't just turn it on. Everything we do is small building steps toward what we hope will be a final success. That's a learning process. You can't just show up and play and expect everything's going to go perfect for you, you've got to work towards that. Everything that we do is still everything that we would do any other year."
So far, it's working. The Pipers have raced out to an early lead in the four-team North Shore AAA league, scoring shutout victories over Handsworth and Sentinel as well as a shootout win against West Vancouver. They'll play each team once more with the aim of keeping the hot streak alive. Rath is happy with what he's seen from his girls so far.
"They're doing well. They're trying to play the way we're asking them to. I'm really impressed with the Grade 12 leadership, helping some of the new players learn our system of play, our style of play. It is, for many of them, a slight change from what they're used to and they're learning quickly."
Argyle won provincial silver in 2010 and gold in 2011 before falling to ninth last season. This year's team is anchored by a core of veteran high school players who have been through those tournaments, said Rath, including goalie Austin Studer, defenders Alex Fiorvento and Gemma Fox, midfielders Jessie Blanchard and Danielle Yallouz, and forward Mikaela Kautzky, all of whom are in grade 12 except for Kautzky. The team boasts 10 Grade 12 players, further adding to thoughts that this senior-laden squad should be unflappable come playoff time.
"They're an older group this year for sure," said Rath. "They're technically good players, they have positive attitudes, they like to play good football. . . . Each game they've gotten better and performed better as a group. Hopefully that trend will continue to improve each game."
They'll face another tough test tomorrow when the take on the Highlanders at 4 p.m. at Boulevard Park (Heywood South is the rainout alternate field). In their first meeting, Argyle and West Van tied 1-1 with the Pipers taking the extra point in a shootout.
"That was only the first game of the season after spring break for both teams, I'm sure West Van has improved over the past couple of weeks and I expect it to be a good game on Monday."
Rath is also expecting a lot of pushback from the Handsworth Royals, last year's provincial bronze-medal team. In their first meeting this season the Pipers won 2-0.
"Handsworth is a good team, they're traditionally a very good team," said Rath. "I would expect over the course of the season they will continue to get better each game and I anticipate that it will be a very difficult game when we play them next time."
When the regular season is over the Pipers will participate in the North Shore/Burnaby provincial playdowns as usual but they will do so knowing that whatever the outcome, they'll move on. That's good news for the rest of the league as well because the zone will get two extra berths no matter where Argyle finishes, meaning the zone gets three total provincial berths rather than their usual two.
All that math, however, is far from the minds of Argyle's coaches and players, said Rath.
"The provincials are still a month and a half away even though we have the comfort of knowing that we'll be there," he said. "Right now our focus is not the provincials, our focus has to be developing the building blocks that will help us be successful when that time comes. We'll focus on that time when it comes but right now our focus will be our next game and what we need to do to improve as individual players and a collective group."
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In other AAA action this week Handsworth will battle Sentinel Monday starting at 3: 30 p.m. at Ambleside Park, field E.
