Weekend preview - Oct 22/23

This weekend features the final rounds of the CIS men's and women's soccer in the OUA. Several things are on the line for both Queen's teams and their players as the Laurentian Voyageurs and Nipissing Lakers come to Kingston to play against both the Queen's Gaels and RMC Paladins.

On the college front, there was a disappointing end to the season this week for the St. Lawrence Vikings women's squad. After their big win last Sunday, they held down the final playoff spot in the OCAA East Division, but the La Cite Coyotes managed to get by Fleming Knights with a goal in the 60th minute to win the game 1-0 and jump past the Vikings for the final spot in the OCAA playoffs.

This weekend's university games are all scheduled to start at noon for the women and 2:15pm for the men. Laurentian visits RMC on the Saturday, playing at the Navy Bay 4 field, while Nipissing heads to RMC to play on the same field on Sunday. Queen's hosts Nipissing on Saturday with the games being relocated to Tindall Field on the main campus due to the football game being played at Richardson. On Sunday, Laurentian visits Queen's, but the game has been moved to the new turf field at West Campus. This field is located about 250 metres northeast of Richardson Stadium, just beside the raised "North Field".

Unfortunately, both RMC teams are playing for pride at this point in the season, but hope to improve on their results from last weekend when they visited Nipissing and Laurentian.

On the other hand, Queen's has a lot to play for, with the Queen's men needing to get at least a draw against Laurentian on the Sunday afternoon to guarantee hosting a playoff game on the Wednesday afternoon (against Laurentian, no less). The women need to collect three points on the weekend to guarantee clinching first place in the OUA East. They have already clinched a bye to the OUA quarter finals, as they hold the tie-breaker against the Ottawa Gee Gees with two wins over them. The Queen's women will host an OUA East quarterfinal match on Sunday, October 30th.

In terms of individual achievements, Jacqueline Tessier of Queen's is currently tied for the lead in goals in the OUA with Elisabeth Wong from Ottawa, both players having scored 10 goals. Krista Celluci (Laurier) and Elish McConville (University of Toronto) have 9 each, and Kelli Chamberlain of Queen's has scored 8 (along with Emily Brown of Laurier). Both Queen's players will be hoping to add to their tally, as Tessier finished first overall in Canada with 18 goals and Chamberlain third with 10 last season. Right now, Eva Thouvenot-Hebert of the University of Montreal leads the way in Canada with 14 goals, and Kelly Burgess of SMU has 10.