Warriors look at bright side after hockey setback
The season ended in disappointment, but will go down as the most successful in program history.
Waterloo Warriors head coach Shaun Reagan offered an upbeat assessment Monday, less than 24 hours after dropping a 2-1 shootout heartbreaker to the Montreal Carabins in the bronze-medal game of the U Sport’s women’s hockey championship.
“Honestly, we haven’t had much time to reflect, but if you had told me in October that we were going to win the McCaw Cup (as Ontario University Athletics champions) and we were going to finish fourth in the country at our first nationals, we’d take it. We’d sign up for that,” said Reagan while waiting to board a flight home from Saskatoon.
“Even the game against Montreal, they scored with 25 seconds left, and that stuff kind of stings, but we’ll be better for it for sure.”
With goaltender Aube Racine on the bench in favour of the extra attacker for almost three full minutes, Montreal forced overtime with 25 seconds left in Sunday’s game on a goal by Juliette Rolland.
Warriors goaltender Mikayla Schnarr made the initial save on the play, but a wide-open Rolland pounced on the rebound and deposited the puck into the empty side of the net.
Four-on-four overtime settled nothing, and Kelly-Ann Nadeau led Montreal to victory by beating Schnarr in a shootout with a forehand move to the glove side. Both teams used three players in the shootout, and Rolland was the only one able to score.
Warriors captain Brooklyn Cole, formerly of Huron Heights Secondary School in Kitchener, opened the scoring in the first period on a feed from Madison Pritchard.
Schnarr, from St. David Catholic Secondary School in Waterloo, was outstanding in the game and stopped 31 of 32 shots before the shootout to win player of the game honours for her team.
“Realistically, we could have won the whole thing, so it’s pretty rewarding for the girls,” said Reagan.
The Warriors opened the tournament with a 6-1 win over the St. Francis Xavier X-Women before falling, 3-1, to the No. 1 ranked Concordia Stingers in a game that was in doubt until the final minutes.
Concordia, a team that features Courtney Rice of Cambridge, defeated the Toronto Varsity Blues, 3-1, in the gold-medal game. Ayr’s Taylor Trussler played her final game for Toronto and will now try to land a pro job in Europe.
The bronze-medal game marked the end for Schnarr and eight other Waterloo players who will not return for the much-anticipated 2024-2025 season that will see the Warriors compete in their second consecutive national championship as tournament host.
The blue-line will suffer the biggest losses as Trisha Cho, Jessica Fennell and Sarah Irwin move on to new opportunities.
Forward Paige Rynne will also exit after scoring the overtime winner in last week’s McCaw Cup win over Toronto. It was the first OUA championship for Waterloo since launching the women’s program ahead of the 2002-03 season. New Hamburg’s Kara Mark posted a 9-3 record in 12 regular-season games for Waterloo and will have the inside track on being the No. 1 goalie next season.
Offensive leaders Leah Herrfort and Tatum James will return, and Reagan is excited about a strong recruiting class that includes Kitchener native/Cambridge Rivulettes U22 forward Emma Thornton.
Reagan also hopes to improve the roster with transfers from other universities in Canada and the United States.
“We’re pretty excited about our recruiting class, so we should be (as good as this season),” said Reagan.
Waterloo takes curling silver
The Alberta Pandas won their second consecutive U Sports women’s curling championship in Fredericton, N.B., with a 10-7 victory over Waterloo in the gold-medal game.
The Waterloo team of Celia Evans, Shannon Warriner, Julia Evans and Violet French scored a 12-7 win over the host New Brunswick Reds in a semifinal matchup to secure the university’s first U Sports team medal of the current school year.
Meanwhile, the defending champion Wilfrid Laurier Golden Hawks fell, 8-3, to the Dalhousie Tigers in a semifinal game.
Laurier skip Sam Mooibroek was named a U Sports first-team allCanadian at the end of the event, with Wyatt Small receiving secondteam honours.
The Regina Cougars captured the gold medal with an 8-5 win over Dalhousie in the final and will represent Canada at the 2025 FISU World University Winter Games in Italy.