Queen’s Golden Gaels will host the Laurentian Voyageurs in an Ontario University Athletics women’s basketball playoff game Wednesday night at the Athletics and Recreation Centre.
Game time is 6 o’clock.
The Gaels go into the playoff tournament as the No. 5 seed, missing the right to host a quarter-final game—and the opportunity to avoid the preliminary round—after losing twice on the final weekend of the regular year.
Winner of five in a row going into Friday’s play, and tied for first place with Ryerson, the Gaels proceeded to lose 66-61 to the Rams and then 75-70 to the Toronto Blues, a team that finished three games below .500. That left Queen’s with a 14-5 record to end the regular year.
Twelve teams qualified for post-season play. The top four teams, according to the league’s statistics-crunching formula, are seeded 1-4, and get direct entry to the quarter-finals. The next eight teams are seeded 5-12.
Ottawa, Ryerson, North division runner-up Carleton and McMaster are the top seeds, in that order. Queen’s, West division champion Windsor (15-5), Western (14-6), Guelph (11-8), Brock (10-9), Toronto (11-8), Laurier (9-11) and Laurentian (gulp, 3-16) are the other playoff-bound teams.
Lakehead, last-place team in the Central division, is the bridesmaid, with a 7-12 record. The other teams that failed to qualify for the post-season are York (3-16), Nipissing (3-16), Waterloo (4-16) and Algoma (1-19).
The Gaels were 8-5 against teams that made the playoffs. They beat Laurentian 61-51 in Sudbury in the teams’ sole meeting this year, on the opening weekend of the season in November.
Against the top four seeds, Queen’s was 2-3 during the regular year, with pre-Christmas victories over McMaster and Ryerson.
The winner of Wednesday’s game will advance to play a quarter-final game with McMaster Saturday in Hamilton.