Trent Excalibur advance to OUA semifinals
Trent to face Laurier Golden Hawks on Saturday afternoon
So far, so good for the Trent Excalibur women’s lacrosse hunt for an OUA medal on home turf.
The Excalibur secured a spot in Saturday’s semifinal with an 8-6 quarter-final win over the Guelph Gryphons Friday afternoon.
Trent is hosting the 10-team OUA Women’s Lacrosse Championship at Justin Chiu Stadium.
The No. 2 team in the East Division with a 9-2-2 regular season record, Trent ran up an 8-3 lead on Guelph, the No. 3 West Division team at 5-8-0, and held on for victory.
They will face the West’s first place Laurier Golden Hawks in the semifinals at 5 p.m. The winner will play for gold on Sunday at 2:30 p.m. and the loser will play for bronze at 12:30 p.m.
The other semifinal at 3:15 p.m. will pit the University of Toronto Blues against the Queen’s Gaels. The Gael’s beat the McMaster Marauders 15-3 in Friday’s late quarter-final.
Excalibur head coach Tori Wasson said her team did what it needed against Guelph to make it to the final four.
“We knew this was a tough team,” Wasson said. “They play a defence that crashes really quick. We’ve got some really strong one-v-one players so we knew it would be a challenge when they crash that quickly. Great teams find a way to win and that’s exactly what they did today.”
Leah Michel led Trent with four goals while Mackenzie Robinson had two goals and two assists. Also scoring was Donna Ward and Victoria Clark. Madison Campbell and Clark also had assists. Scoring for Guelph was Erin Murray with two goals while Kristine Webber, Emily Power, Victoria Rowe and Nicole Gastle also scored.
Clark, a rookie, and Campbell, a sophomore, are among the Peterborough natives on the Excalibur. They both felt their team could have played a bit better.
“We should have had a better score but we all worked hard,” Clark said. “Tomorrow is now our focus, to beat Laurier.”
“It wasn’t our best game,” said Campbell, “but we really pulled through in the last five minutes and persisted to the end of the game,. It’s really hard to pull off a stall, especially when it’s manon-man D but we did a great job and kept the ball moving.”
Trent started its program in 2012 and already has an OUA gold medal under its belt from 2016. They’re proud to be hosts for the first time, Wasson said.
“It’s a dream come true,” she said. “To get this team so far. The pride this university has in our team showed through today. They pulled out all the stops. We feel so lucky to be a part of this university.”
“It’s pretty awesome,” Clark said. “I’ve never really got to play any big games at home. To have all our fans and family and friends watching is really fun.”
“It’s really nice to have all the other varsity teams supporting and backing us,” Campbell said. “A lot of them came out to our game. It’s nice to be playing at home and look up into the stands and see all that green.”
In two early games to secure quarter-final berths, McMaster beat the York Lions 12-3 and the Brock Badgers defeated UOIT Ridgebacks 14-5. In other quarter-final play, the Blues defeated the defending champion Western Mustangs 12-7 and Laurier defeated Brock 8-4.