Queen’s Golden Gaels peppered Laurentian Voyageurs goalkeeper Richele Greenwood with 16 shots and they emerged from their Ontario University Athletics women’s soccer quarter-final match in Sudbury Sunday afternoon with a 2-1 victory.
The win gives Queen’s a berth in the conference Final Four tournament next weekend in Ottawa, where they’ll face West division champion York in a semifinal match Saturday. It’s the sixth time in the last seven years the Gaels have advanced to the league championship tournament.
The Lions finished the year 15-0-1—outscoring their opponents 53-7—and they defeated Guelph 3-0 in their quarter-final Sunday.
The Gaels, who played Laurentian to a scoreless draw in the final game of the regular season, in a match where they mustered just four shots on the Voyaguers keeper, went to the attack immediately, scoring twice in the first nine minutes of Sunday’s contest.
Tara Bartram, who scored the game-winning goal in Wednesday’s first-round playoff match in Toronto, scored in the game’s fourth minute and it took just four more minutes for Micah Vermeer to score, doubling the Queen's lead.
The score stayed that way to the end of the first half, but a goal in the 51st minute by Sarah Sanford drew Laurentian within a goal. Queen’s goalkeeper Michaila Frawley was perfect from that point, however, ending the game with five saves.
For Queen’s, who finished the regular year 7-2-7, fifth in the East division, the victory extended an undefeated streak to 10 games. Though Laurentian finished second in the division—9-4-3—the Voyageurs managed to win just once in their last four games.
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The season came to an end for the Queen’s men on Sunday when they were beaten 1-0 in their quarter-final match by the Varsity Blues in Toronto. It’s the second year in a row that the Gaels were eliminated by a 1-0 quarter-final loss on the road to the Blues.
Nirun Sivananthan scored the game’s only goal late in the first half, when he put a slow, bouncing cross behind Gaels goalkeeper Taylor Reynolds.
Queen’s, 9-2-5 in the regular season, third in the East division, went into Sunday’s game on a seven-game undefeated streak. Toronto, 11-3-2 and the second-place team in the division, had split the season series with Queen’s, each gaining a win. For the Blues, Sunday’s victory was the fourth in a row.