Courtesy Glenn MacDonald, The Chronicle Herald

It was a November weekend in Newfoundland that Trevor Red­dick and the St. Francis Xavier X-Women soccer team won’t soon forget.

At the 2009 Atlantic university championship, the X-Women captured St. F.X.’s first women’s soccer title in 23 years and they did it the hard way.

The X-Women., who were ranked fourth in the six-team tournament and didn’t have the benefit of owning a quarter-final bye, won three games in three days in Mount Pearl, N.L. Those wins included an overtime victo­ry over the previously-unbeaten and No. 1 seed Dalhousie Tigers in the Saturday semifinal and a 2-1 decision in penalty kicks over the UPEI Panthers in the conference championship the following day.

“Some may say we didn’t de­serve to win it last year but it doesn’t matter," said Reddick, the X-Women’s soft-spoken head coach. “We played three strong games in the tournament. But overall we had a very good sea­son and we knew we had a great team that was capable of win­ning an AUS championship."

With the 2010 regular-season campaign opening today, Red­dick said don’t expect his troops will be resting on their laurels just because they’re the defend­ing conference champs.

“You’re always concerned about complacency but our phi­losophy as a team is to work as hard as we can in preparation for the AUS championship, when it really matters," said Reddick, who enters his seventh year as St. F.X. head coach. “Winning the title was great and we worked hard for it and we de­served it but this is a new season, a new team and a new group of players."

The youthful X-Women have bid adieu to veterans Laura Thompson, Eugenia Renderos and Amy MacKinnon, among others, from last year’s cham­pionship squad.

Reddick expects returnees such as conference rookie of the year Meaghan Ramsden and leading scorer Olivia Zanette to pick up the slack.

“Meaghan’s in fantastic shape, she’ll be an anchor for us at the back," Reddick said. “And Olivia will be a threat. She looks very strong, very sharp."

“Defensively, we will be quite good," he added. “We’re young and we have a few new faces. But the core that’s returning is still quite strong."

The CIS No. 10-ranked X-Wom­en, the only Atlantic team in the national rankings, begins its title defence at home this afternoon against the Memorial Sea-Hawks in Antigonish.

Other season openers today feature three other matinees — the Acadia Axewomen at the Dalhousie Tigers, the Moncton Aigles Bleues visiting the Saint Mary’s Huskies and the UNB Varsity Reds hosting the Mount Allison Mounties — and a 5 o’clock start between the UPEI Panthers and the host Cape Bre­ton Capers.