Se­nior na­tion­al women’s foot­ball team strik­er, Ken­nya “Yaya” Cord­ner and her IL Sand­viken team cap­tured the league crown in the Nor­we­gian Toppse­rien in em­phat­ic style ham­mer­ing Klepp 8-0 in the 17th and penul­ti­mate round of com­pe­ti­tion on Sun­day.

With the win, Sand­viken im­proved to an unas­sail­able 49 points from 17 match­es on the ten-team ta­ble, four ahead of Rosen­borg with one round of match­es left to play.

Sand­viken led 2-0 at the half-time in­ter­val and added six more items in the sec­ond-half in front their home crowd with six of the goals be­ing scored from head­ers.

Maria Brochmann was the star of the day at the host Stem­me­myren Ground, in Bergen with goals in the 23rd, 34th, 52nd, 68th, and 85th while In­grid Marie Spord (64th and 87th), and Guro Bergsvand (78th) added the oth­ers.

De­spite be­ing an un­used sub­sti­tute Cord­ner who re­cent­ly net­ted for the T&T se­nior women’s team in T&T's 1-1 friend­ly draw at home against Pana­ma in the sec­ond of two match­es, was de­light­ed with the win.

Writ­ing on her Face­book page Cord­ner of Spey­side in To­ba­go stat­ed: "God, if it wasn’t for you, I don’t know if I would have been here to­day (so) thank­ful for your mer­cies and the vic­to­ry and for be­ing a part of IL Sand­viken his­to­ry-win­ing 2021 (Cup). Just a lit­tle girl from To­ba­go in Nor­way liv­ing the dream."

Cord­ner, 32, and her club­mates who will close out the sea­son on Sat­ur­day against third-placed LSK Kvin­ner (37 points) al­so made amends for their 2-1 loss against ri­vals Valeren­ga in the NM Cup fi­nal on Oc­to­ber 31.

In the sem­fi­nals on Oc­to­ber 3, Sand­viken blanked LSK Kvin­ner 2-0 while Valeren­ga trashed Rosen­borg 4-0 a day ear­li­er.

<Jack’s Gram­bling State falls on penal­ties in fi­nal>

T&T’s Kay­deen Jack and the Gram­bling State Uni­ver­si­ty women's soc­cer team put forth a valiant ef­fort in the South­west­ern Ath­let­ic Con­fer­ence (SWAC) Tour­na­ment Cham­pi­onship Game but fell 3-2 to Prairie View A&M in the penal­ty-kicks shootout at the Prairie View A&M Soc­cer Com­plex in Texas on Sun­day.

With the loss, Jack and The La­dy Tigers fin­ished the sea­son with an over­all record of 9-7-3 while the St James-born T&T in­ter­na­tion­al and her team-mates Liz­beth Aguero, and Kai­ley Pe­na were named to the 2021 All-SWAC Tour­na­ment team.

In Sun­day’s fi­nal, Gram­bling State quick­ly jumped ahead of Prairie View A&M in the 21st minute when Aguero scored on a free-kick from rough­ly 25 yards out, build­ing a 1-0 lead.

How­ev­er, in the 68th minute, a hand­ball vi­o­la­tion called on Lind­say Jaiyes­i­mi in the penal­ty area, award­ed the La­dy Pan­thers with a penal­ty kick which D'Sanye Nu­gent scored, knot­ting the game up at 1-1 af­ter which no fur­ther goals were scored in reg­u­la­tion time.

In over­time, Gram­bling State out­shot PVA­MU 2-1, but nei­ther team could break the dead­lock, send­ing the game to penal­ty-kicks

Fol­low­ing a miss on GSU's first penal­ty kick at­tempt, Prairie View A&M's Nu­gent re­spond­ed to put the La­dy Pan­thers up 1-0.

The duo of Kam­bria Cash and Jack then scored Gram­bling State's next two at­tempts, while their goal­keep­er Britt Ver­hees made back-to-back saves to give the La­dy Tigers a 2-1 ad­van­tage.

How­ev­er, PVA­MU con­nect­ed on its fi­nal two tries, while GSU, in their fourth SWAC fi­nal in five years missed its fi­nal two at­tempts, se­cur­ing the cham­pi­onship for the La­dy Pan­thers

In the semi­fi­nals on Fri­day, Jack and Gram­bling State knocked off SWAC reg­u­lar-sea­son co-cham­pi­on, and sec­ond-seed­ed Al­aba­ma A&M 2-0

The vic­to­ry al­so served as re­demp­tion for GSU (9-7-2) as they avenged a 1-0 loss to AA­MU (10-8-1, 8-1-0) on Oc­to­ber 27 and fol­lows their 2-1 quar­ter­fi­nal win over Jack­son State at the same venue on Thurs­day.

Aguero quick­ly put the La­dy Tigers in front 1-0 when she re­ceived a beau­ti­ful pass from Mi­ran­da Ur­bizu and de­posit­ed the ball in the back of the net in the fourth minute.

SWAC Of­fen­sive Play­er of the Year, Pe­na then put Al­aba­ma A&M away for good in the 89th minute when she struck the back of the net for the sec­ond goal of the con­test

Last week, St James-born Jack who at­tend­ed Diego Mar­tin Cen­tral Sec­ondary and was named to the 2018 Con­fer­ence USA All-Fresh­man Team as a mem­ber of Flori­da In­ter­na­tion­al Uni­ver­si­ty was one of five Gram­bling State Uni­ver­si­ty women's soc­cer stu­dent-ath­letes se­lect­ed to the All-SWAC First Team.

Gram­bling State's five All-SWAC se­lec­tions were the most in the con­fer­ence.

A for­mer St Agnes An­gli­can Pri­ma­ry School stand-out ath­lete, Jack start­ed 13-of-15 games she played for GSU, tal­ly­ing two goals with two as­sists from the mid­field po­si­tion. She al­so was a ma­jor com­po­nent of one of the stingi­est de­fen­sive units in the SWAC, al­low­ing just five goals in nine con­fer­ence games.

<James gets two in West Texas 10-0 blowout>

T&T’s Asha James scored twice on five at­tempts and one as­sist while two of her La­dy Buffs reg­is­tered hat tricks as West Texas A&M de­feat­ed Texas A&M In­ter­na­tion­al 10-0 at The Pitch on Se­nior Day in Canyon, Texas.

With the lop­sided win, the To­ba­go-born James and The La­dy Buffs fin­ish the reg­u­lar sea­son at 13-5-0 and 9-4-0 in Lone Star Con­fer­ence play.

Af­ter 24 min­utes of score­less ac­tion, for­mer Sig­nal Hill Sec­ondary stu­dent James found se­nior Han­nah Kel­ley-Lusk af­ter West Texas was award­ed its sec­ond cor­ner to take a 1-0 lead.

The La­dy Buffs tripled their lead in just sev­en min­utes with Maliyah Men­doza’s first brace of the sea­son in the 28th and 31st minute off of as­sists by Emi­ly Avi­la and Rea­gan Meta­cale re­spec­tive­ly.

Se­nior Cheyenne Oroz­co scored her first col­le­giate goal in the 36th minute be­fore James col­lect­ed her first score of the match in the 42nd, for her 13th of the sea­son quick­ly fol­lowed by Kel­ley-Lusk’s sec­ond of the half to make it 6-0 at the half.

Men­doza was the first play­er to reg­is­ter a third goal as the ju­nior net­ted again in the 49th-minute while Kel­ley-Lusk record­ed her 56th-ca­reer score when she com­plet­ed her third hat-trick of the sea­son in the 61st minute.

With her fi­nal score of the match, the Unit­ed Soc­cer Coach­es Na­tion­al Play­er of the Week set a new pro­gram record with 25 goals in a sin­gle sea­son pass­ing for­mer La­dy Buff Sar­it Shenar's record.

Kahre­na Thomp­son joined in on the blowout in the 80th be­fore James fin­ished the scor­ing with her team sec­ond-best 13th of the cam­paign in the 80th-minute for the La­dy Buffs first dou­ble-fig­ure scor­ing match of the sea­son.

With the win, the La­dy Buffs earned the fourth seed for the LSC Tour­na­ment and will host fifth-seed St. Mary's to­day at The Pitch in Canyon. The Rat­tlers fin­ished the reg­u­lar sea­son with a 7-4-2 record in con­fer­ence play af­ter de­feat­ing Lub­bock Chris­t­ian, 1-0 on Sat­ur­day af­ter­noon.