Fury clinch second place in W-league
Ottawa to play host to Toronto in conference semifinal
Rehearsal is over for the Ottawa Fury women’s soccer club. It’s showtime.
The Fury won a preview of the W-League Central Conference semifinal by defeating the Toronto Lady Lynx 2-1 in the regular-season finale at the Algonquin College Soccer Complex on Saturday. The victory clinched second place for the Fury (7-3-2) and earned Ottawa the right to play host to second-place Toronto (5-25) in that playoff contest on Wednesday evening.
“We just need to play up to what we are capable of doing,” Fury head coach Dom Oliveri said Sunday evening.
Lisa-Marie Woods and Kinley McNicoll scored in the first half to put Ottawa ahead 2-0, but Toronto trimmed that lead with a goal by Nichelle Prince in the 42nd minute. Fortunately for the Fury, that was all the Lady Lynx could muster offensively.
The Fury’s Katie Brusell left the game after landing heavily on the turf while attempting a diving header on a corner kick, but Oliveri said Brusell felt better on Sunday. Her availability for the Wednesday game is to be determined Monday or Tuesday.
Toronto also lost a player to injury on Saturday, with striker Ashley Lawrence going out of the contest in the 26th minute.
Oliveri said the Fury faced a similar playoff path in 2011, when it had to win twice to get to the W-League Final Four, but, similar to last year’s W-League championship, that was part of the team’s history, not an indication of what was to come during this year’s playoffs.
“If you don’t win the final game and you’re not at the top of your game at the right time, it doesn’t matter,” he said.
“Our focus from minute one was to make sure that the players are peaking at the right time, and we are pretty pleased with where we are right now.”
The winner of Wednesday’s game will travel to Laval to take on the Comets in the conference final next weekend.