College: St. Lawrence Vikings v Fleming Knights quick summary

Last night, the St. Lawrence Vikings women's and men's teams faced the Fleming Knights in their second last game of the season. Both teams needed to come up with big wins in order to stay alive in the playoff picture. The women came into the game in a tie for fourth place (top four teams make the playoffs), and the men sat in fifth spot coming into the matchup.

The day was gloomy and wet, and the game times were bumped up by an hour earlier in the week to accomodate the expected weather, and to ensure that the games would be completed before the fall of darkness. Unfortunately, I was unable to attend due to returning home from watching Canada's World Cup qualifier against Puerto Rico in Toronto the night before, and I was a bit over-exhausted.

The women kicked off the first game and the Vikings found the net first on a goal from Carolina Parravano. Marissa Belback from Fleming tied the game up around the 25th minute and the teams went into halftime tied up 1-1. In the 60th minute, Fleming won a corner and when the ball was cleared out of the penalty area by the Vikings defense, Fleming's Caitlyn Kelly got ahold of the ball and scored on a long shot to put Fleming up 2-1. Despite St. Lawrence dominating the last 15 minutes of the match, they were unable to score from late corners, and even put a ball off of the crossbar.

With the 2-1 loss, the women Vikings fall to a 1-4-1 record on the season and need to win their final game (Sunday at 1pm) against Centennial and have several other results go their way. Despite the loss, the team has already improved on their 0-7-1 record from last season.

Shortly after the end of the women's match, the men kicked off their game. They scored their first goal of the season when Adam Wood put the ball just beyond the diving Fleming goalkeeper. The Vikings managed to hold onto the 1-0 lead until halftime, but gave up a goal to Fleming almost immediately on the restart. The game stayed balanced and even until the 43rd minute when Fleming got a corner. The ball was put in and a scrambled ensued before the ball ended up in the back of the St. Lawrence goal to give Fleming the 2-1 win.

That result officially eliminates the Viking men from the playoffs and drops them to a 0-4-2 record on the season. Their final game is against Centennial on Sunday at 3pm. A St. Lawrence win would likely eliminate Centennial from the playoffs.