The Cleveland Year 8 girl’s soccer team once again showed that Cleveland High are among the best soccer schools in the State by beating Cavendish Road in the South East Queensland Championship. Cleveland’s team, hungry for a grand final win started the game positively with enthusiasm, team spirit and a desire to remain undefeated. Aileen Brown ran half the length of the field, beating four defenders to score the only goal of the game. All team members worked extremely well supporting each other both in offence and defence. Whilst all players contributed 100% notable performances were by Tania Patchett, Nadine Magee, Rachael Hughes and Jess Burns.
Cleveland’s year 8 boys took an early lead as a result of good possession but relaxed too much and a number of defensive mistakes saw them trailing 3-1 shortly after. Some structural changes in defence saw a change in the game again in favour of Cleveland to go into half time 3-all with Aidan Sanderson leading the way causing trouble for The Gaps Defence and being rewarded with the equaliser. After half time the boys had The Gap on the back foot but failed to convert numerous opportunities created by Dylan Stubbs in left midfield until their opponents scored against the run of play to lead 4-3. Despite numerous chances to take control of the game, Cleveland could not settle into good patterns of possession and the score remained unchanged for the remainder of the game.
The year 10 girls struggled against a fast Albany Creek team who peppered the Cleveland goal with shots in the opening stages of the match. Coby Imber kept Cleveland in the game with great goalkeeping while Karlee Patchett as sweeper was in fine form in goals to constantly make last ditch tackles.
The glut of possession eventually told with Albany Creek scoring and taking control of the game. Cleveland refused to give in and fought to the final whistle in hot and trying conditions