(Posted 4:30 p.m., April 2)
East end pair help U17 women's soccer team post historic win
By Fred Sherwin
Orléans Online

Rachelle Beanlands (left) and Haisha Cantave are members of Canada’s U17 women’s soccer team which recently qualified to play in the U17 World Cup in September. Canada Soccer photo

Haisha Cantave and Rachelle Beanlands are two of the best soccer players this country has to offer. They also both happen to hail from Orléans.

One (Cantave) is a striker, while the other (Beanlands) is a keeper. They’ve played together and against each other for the better part of the past eight years, and have shared the same memories although not always from the same perspective.

Beanlands is the keeper on the senior girls team at Colonel By Secondary School while Cantave is the striker at École secondaire Louis-Riel.

Last year, they played against each other in the NCSSAA championship game and the Cougars came out on top. Two weeks later they would face each other again in the quarterfinals of the OFSAA provincial AAA championships and it was Cantave’s team which emerged victorious even though Beanlands stopped her Ontario U16 teammate a half dozen times.

A little over a month ago the two girls were invited to play for the national U17 team in the CONCACAF tournament in Costa Rica which also served as the qualifying tournament for the FIFA U17 Women’s World Cup which is being held in Trinidad-Tobago from Sept. 5-25.

Canada opened the tournament with a 1-0 loss to Mexico and then bounced back to beat Panama 2-1, with Cantave getting Canada’s first goal in the eighth minute of the game.

The fifth-ranked Canadians then beat Jamaica 4-1 to earn a berth in the semi-finals against reigning U17 World Cup silver medalists U.S.A.

The game was extremely close. After neither team was able to score in regulation or extra time, the outcome came down to penalty kicks. While the United States was only able to beat Canada’s starting keeper Sabrina D’Angelo three times on five attempts the Canadians scored all three times to win the shootout 5-3.

Cantave had been substituted out of the game in the 53rd minute and therefore wasn’t eligible to take part in the penalty kicks. Still it was an unbelievable moment for the two 17-year-olds.

As emotional as the win was over the U.S., the Canadians still had one more game to play against Mexico.

Even though both teams had already qualified for the World Cup by making it to the final, the tournament championship was on the line as was the higher seed in Trinidad -Tobago in September.

Cantave played the first 62 minutes in the final and was on the field when Kinley McNicoll scored the only goal of the game in the eighth minute to deliver Canada’s first ever CONCACAF U17 women’s tournament victory.

Cantave actually came agonizingly close to doubling Canada’s score just prior to the end of the first half when she burst into the box and rolled a low shot off the post before it was cleared from the goal mouth area.

The Canadian girls had to play the final 33 minutes of the game down a player following a red card, but bravely held on for the win.

Although Beanlands didn’t play any minutes in the CONCACAF tournament, she did get her first international cap playing against Jamaica in a pre-tournament exhibition game in Trinidad on March 3 and picked up her first win.

The two girls will resume their high school rivalry this spring when Louis-Riel and Colonel By are expected to once again vye for the city championship.
In the meantime, they will also report to the first national U17 training camp in May which will be the first step to Canada’s appearance in the U17 Women’s World Cup in September.

(This story was made possible thanks to the generous support of our local business partners.)

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