League champions: Wangaratta City FC claim div two women title glory with 6-0 belting

They’ve done it. Wangaratta City FC’s division two women’s side are AWFA league champions for the third time, and the first since 2021. The Lady Devils needed either a win or a draw from the last matchday of the home and away season against St Pats at Ian Barker Field – not only did they deliver the win and the title, but they did so in style, smashing Pats 6-0. It took mere seconds for the first goal to be scored, with Ella Antonello burying their first chance in the back of the net to give the Lady Devils an early ascendancy. More pain was piled on through the first half, with Victoria Broady (18’), Samantha Scott (32’) and Sarah-Ann Holmes-Brown (35’) getting in on the fun. With a 4-0 half-time lead, the Lady Devils could’ve sat back and just played for time, but the side wanted to fine tune some of their attacking plays ahead of finals. They caused an own goal in the 48th to go 5-0 up, before captain Isabelle Christison slotted the team’s sixth in the 65th minute to put a cherry on top of the game. Coach Kristy Mellor said it was a phenomenal achievement to take out a league title. “I knew we were up there with a really good chance this year, probably about halfway through when we were undefeated, I thought maybe we can do this, but I knew the second half would be so much harder, and it was,” she said. “By the time you get to the second half, everyone’s gotten to know each other as players, teams are performing better, and when you’re top, people just want to have a crack and see if they can beat you. “There’s always a bit of pressure, so it was certainly a much harder second half [of the season]. “The girls also had a lot on – we had some girls doing their deb, some people away on travel exchanges, so I knew it was going to be challenging because everyone has lives apart from football. “I think it’s the depth of our squad that got us over the line in the end – with people being away, we were able to put people in different positions, and because they’ve played those before or they played them when they were in under 16s, they were able to step up, and that’s what got us across the line.” Speaking of the match itself, Mellor said the entire team pulled together incredibly. “I was a bit nervous going in, I just wasn’t sure, given we had to win it, but the girls went out there and played amazingly well,” she said. “We scored within the first couple of minutes, and I think that just helped us settle. “Some of the passing, the girls’ positioning… Vic Broady on the wing had a beautiful game in the first half, she’s a left footer and managed to score a beautiful goal from that left wing. “There was some really good midfield play, setting up goals, it just worked really well. “What was also wonderful about it was every single person had some really good gametime, the players in their first season performed really well. “The people who stepped up were people who were brand new to soccer this year or are still developing their skills – they really took the game on, and it was beautiful to see them all working together.” The Lady Devils will be hard to stop come finals, which kick off this weekend. Meanwhile, Wangaratta City FC’s division one men’s side would have to be incredibly disappointed from their output on the weekend, after slumping to a 0-3 loss against lower-ranked St Pats. On a brighter note, the club will have all senior and junior teams in finals, a remarkable achievement for any sporting organisation.

League champions: Wangaratta City FC claim div two women title glory with 6-0 belting

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