Trent women’s lacrosse team wins bronze
Excalibur defeats Blues 6-5 in OUA Women’s Lacrosse Championship after losing in semi-final
An OUA bronze medal on home turf proved to be a gratifying consolation prize for Trent Excalibur women’s lacrosse team.
The Excalibur picked themselves up after a heart-breaking 8-7 loss to the Laurier Golden Hawks in Saturday night’s semifinal. They battled from behind in the bronze medal match to beat the University of Toronto Blues 6-5 in overtime Sunday afternoon at Justin Chiu Stadium.
The Queen’s Gaels capped an unbeaten season with an 11-6 win over Laurier in the gold medal game. Queen’s finished with a 15-0-1 record with the lone blemish a tie against Trent. Queen’s reached the final with a 10-2 semifinal victory over the Blues on Saturday.
In the bronze medal game, Trent’s Donna Ward tied the game 5-5 with 6:24 left in regulation time. She then scored the lone goal of overtime, her third of the game to go along with an assist, 90 seconds into the first of two three-minute OT periods.
“The last 30 seconds were the most emotional of my whole lacrosse career,” said Ward. “Ending on this, because it may be my last season, means everything to get a medal.”
The Excalibur, who were OUA champions in 2016, really felt a gold medal was a possibility so it was tough to get over that disappointment for a game 18 hours later.
“We really felt like we belonged in that gold medal game,” said Trent head coach Tori Wasson. “We thought the better team was us (Saturday) night. We just had a couple of bad bounces. These girls will learn from that and we’re so excited for the future.”
Trent has 21 of 23 players eligible to return in 2019.
Wasson said the university has been so supportive of their team and organizers did such a great job over the weekend they owed it to them to give it their all in the bronze medal game.
“We had dinner together last night and breakfast together this morning and the more we spent time together the more that sadness released,” said Wasson. “Being together their focus and chemistry came back and we were able to pull it out.”
Two fourth-year Peterborough girls, Mikayla Hicks and Lexi Hill, are the only two graduating players. It was an emotional moment for the girls and a bonus to end their careers with a win.
“It’s a huge reward,” Hicks said. “We worked so hard all season and this was a huge year for our team. It’s great to have something to take home.
“It was a tough loss yesterday in the semifinals and we did the same today, we left it all out on the field. It’s still great to come out with a medal,” Hicks said. “You come out of the semifinal game and you’re devastated because you worked so hard for that. We definitely could have beat the team, we played with them the whole game, but we knew there was still a medal on the line and if we came out on our game we could still conquer that and bring home the medal in front of our family and friends.”
“I think that’s the difference between good teams and great teams,” said Ward. “We just had to put the bad games behind us and keep pushing and that’s what we did today. Even though it’s bronze and not what we had hoped for I’m so proud of everybody.”
Morgan McEachen, Leah Michel and Mackenzie Robinson also scored for Trent in the bronze medal game. Scoring for Toronto were Heather McDougall with two goals and two assists while Brynne Yarranton had two goals and May-Anne Meerasabeer one.
In the fifth place game the Western Mustangs beat the Guelph Gryphons 7-5 on Sunday morning.
In the seventh place game the McMaster Marauders defeated the Brock Badgers 5-4.