Sydney Hall is on the offensive these days.
In her first two seasons on the UNBC Timberwolves women's soccer team, Hall has lined up at centreback, a defensive position, but heading into the team's sophomore CIS season T-wolves' head coach Andy Cameron decided it would be best for the team if Hall moved to forward.
"Andy came to me about a month before the season started and asked what I thought about entertaining a new position," said Hall. "I thought about it and he kind of talked me through it and I kind of understood where he's coming from and I thought it would work out well."
It worked out well in the T-wolves' first exhibition game Saturday as Hall had three goals and an assist to lead the team to a 4-3 win over the Grande Prairie Regional College Wolves of the Alberta Colleges Athletic Conference.
Hall said playing alongside freshman Jessica Erickson and last year's top scorer Sidney Roy made her transition to offensive player smooth.
"It was really easy with the great balls they're bringing in and how fast we are on the outside," said the 19-year-old marketing and finance major.
Cameron said when Fiona Raymond, a former player with the PGYSA under-18 Kodiaks, signed with UNBC it gave the team a strong defensive player and allowed them to move a veteran like Hall upfront.
"You're trying to get the best lineup out there and we have a good young defender in Fiona Raymond step on and that's allowed us to move more players up front," said Cameron.
Hall has played a defensive position since she was about 12 years old, because at five-foot-eight she's was always one of the tallest and strongest players on her soccer teams. The strength Hall exhibits is one of the reasons her coaches moved her to the forward position, because she can hold her own against the opposition's defenders and hold on to the ball at the same time.
In their first season in the Canada West conference of the CIS, the T-wolves scored six goals on 55 attempts in 12 games. Roy notched five of the team's goals, while Jessica Manning had the other goal. UNBC averaged less than one goal per game and allowed an average of almost six goals a game, though three blowout losses at Manitoba (11-0) and UBC (13-0) and versus Victoria (10-0) inflate the T-wolves' goals against slightly.
Hall said it'll be nice to be able to help out Roy upfront this season and take some of the goal-scoring pressure off of her. Roy had the T-wolves other goal in the win over Grande Prairie, set up by Hall.
"It'll be nice to be up there to help her instead of her having to do all the offence herself, which she managed to do last year quite well, but it's nice to give her some help so she's not running 20 kilometres a game," said Hall.
* The UNBC women head to Kamloops on the weekend to face Thompson Rivers University Wolfpack in a pair of exhibition games. The first regular season home game for the women is Friday, Sept. 13 at the North Cariboo men's soccer field against the Alberta Pandas at 7 p.m.
