Cards upend undefeated Chargers 3-1

In a very short season, this was as close to a must-win game as the St. Charles College Cardinals boys soccer team are likely to face.

Saddled with losses in their first two games of the year, the Cards drilled three goals in the second half, upending the previously unbeaten Confederation Chargers 3-1 Monday at the James Jerome Sports Complex.

Jacob Leore scored twice for St. Charles, with Jacob Belanger adding the other, while Matthew Walker replied with a late goal in a losing cause for Confed. The Cardinals are in for a busy week, facing the Bishop Carter Gators on Wednesday and battling the Lo-Ellen Park Knights 24 hours later.

In a matchup of a pair of premier division girls soccer contenders, the Marymount Regals and Collège Notre-Dame Alouettes played to a 2-2 draw over at Sacré-Coeur. Chantae Robinson and Courtney Smith scored for Marymount, with Brianne Rodrigue netting both goals for CND.

The St. Benedict Bears boys team improved to 4-0, edging the Lockerby Vikings 1-0, while the Bears girls team may be wishing they had opted for Premier Division status, recording a second straight lopsided win, this time over the Sudbury Secondary School North Stars.

In other games, the Lasalle Lancers ladies opened their season, finally, with a 4-0 win over the Chelmsford Flyers while the Sacré-Coeur Griffons boys' team slipped past the Macdonald-Cartier Panthères 4-3 in a wide-open affair.

Meanwhile, the Nipissing Classic High School Soccer Tournament in North Bay produced no Sudbury winners, though the Notre-Dame girls did manage to get to the final before losing in a shootout.

The Alouettes opened with victories over the O'Gorman Knights of Timmins (3-0) and the Widdifield Wildcats of North Bay (1-0), before playing to a 2-2 draw with Bishop Carter.

A 3-1 semifinal win over the St. Joseph Scollard Hall Bears (North Bay) earned Notre-Dame a second matchup with Widdifield, with the encounter remaining scoreless until the Wildcats triumphed on penalty kicks.

The Confederation girls posted a record of 2-0-1, but were knocked out in the semifinals, also in a shootout. In the boys draw, the Chargers sported a mark of 1-2-1, blanking Macdonald-Cartier (4-0), losing to the West Ferris Trojans (2-1) and Chippewa Raiders (2-1) and fighting it out in a scoreless draw with O'Gorman in a makeshift consolation final.