Women's Soccer: The OUA never sleeps

It was time for a break this past weekend in RSEQ, AUS and much of Canada West. The OUA trundled on with games, though.

There was a worrying slip from Queen's on the weekend when they lost 1-0 to Toronto. Overconfidence might get mentioned here or there, but that can probably be forgiven—the team sits high atop the division, still four points ahead of the Varsity Blues.

Ottawa play a big game this weekend against Carleton. If the Gee-Gees win, it's a chance to climb closer to U of T. If the Ravens win, they'll close the gap on the third seed.

The six teams that qualify for the playoffs are otherwise mostly set—it's hard to see RMC or Trent making a ten point comeback this late. Nipissing are already out.

In the west, everything is tight. Laurier have a ten point lead and a 10-0-0 record (take that, Queen's!), so we'll leave them for now. With four games to play, third-place McMaster and sixth-place Guelph are separated by nine points. Windsor have just stomped on Western's clinging hand with a two late goals by Alyshia Phillips and Tina Vagnini, winning 3-1 on Oct. 11. Western aren't out, but it means a loss to Guelph on Saturday could be very problematic for the Mustangs.

Even further west, the Fraser Valley Cascades are plummeting faster than a bad waterfall pun. They have one win in the past month and they haven't scored since Oct. 1 against Lethbridge, who have conceded the most goals of any Canada West team this year with 21. The Cascades have a chance this weekend against lowly Manitoba and Regina. Thanks to a tight conference, they're only three points out of a playoff spot, so two wins could vault them to fourth with the right results elsewhere.

Trinity Western have won eight straight, erasing early scoring problems. Victoria lost twice again on the weekend, 2-1 to the Spartans and 1-0 to UBC.


No-one's out in Canada West, yet, although things don't look good for Regina or Lethbridge.

There were no games in the east this week with RSEQ and the AUS on Thanksgiving break, although McGill did find time on Oct. 6th to draw to UQAM in a rescheduled game.

In the AUS, the story is Saint Mary's, who have traditionally been a work-ethic first kind of team: good on defense, predictable in attack. Only this year they have 14 goals, equaling UPEI's output.

The Huskies' RPI puts them fourth in the country, even if they're invisible in the voting-based CIS Top 10. They currently sit second in AUS with a game in hand on Dalhousie and UPEI.

Saint Mary's play St. FX and Acadia this weekend. A win against the X-Women would go a long way to showing they've earned that second-place position (and the fifth-best-team-in-the-country RPI label). Maybe it might even convince a few of the stingier voters to let them have a peek at the Top 10, too.