Sunday, November 18, 2007

CIS CORNER: GAELS MAKE A MINOR STATEMENT ON SOUTHWEST SWING

The weekend for our teams of interest from The 613...

HOOPS

  • Gaels: A weekend split from the southwest Ontario swing (71-61 loss at Windsor after an 82-71 win at Western) is pretty satisfactory. Queen's (2-2 in the OUA) has already played the best of the west, and they don't have to make the tough Lakehead-McMaster road trip, so they're well set up for the final four games before the holiday break.

    Jon Ogden had 22 points Saturday in a the loss to Windsor (and former Queen's coach Chris Oliver), who actually trailed by five entering the fourth quarter. From the looks of it, the Lancers' point guard Ryan Steer (21 points, nine assists) helped his team get through with a win.

    Friday, Mitch Leger was the man with 20 points, 15 rebounds as the Gaels won on Western's floor for the second time this season. When was the last time that happened?
  • Ravens: The "break up Carleton" refrain is only going to get stronger; the Ravens have won their first four OUA games by 20 or more. That will likely change with Western and Windsor visiting next weekend.

    Aaron Doornekamp, the pride of Odessa, had a double-double (17 points, 11 boards) in a 90-66 win over Laurier on Saturday.

    Another ex-Ernestown Eagle, Jacqui Snyder, hit the tying shot at the buzzer in regulation in the women's hoops Ravens' eventual double-OT loss to Waterloo on Friday. Good for her, tough one for her team.
  • Gee-Gees: The U of O was a season-best 18-of-23 from the foul line in Saturday's 71-58 win over Waterloo, which no doubt made everyone breathe a bit easier, since they're shooting just 68%. Sean Peter, the stalwart, had an efficient night vs. the Warriors, needing just 14 shots to get his game-high 26 and making 8-of-9 freebies.

HOCKEY

  • Gee-Gees: A 6-0 wipeout of RMC on Saturday completed a four-point road weekend for the U of O (7-5-0). Dan McDonald, in a return to a city where he played 2 1/2 seasons with the Kingston Frontenacs, scored or set up seven of the team's nine regulation goals across their two wins.

    Meantime, what a way Cassandra Breukelman, a rookie on the U of O women's team, to pot her first CIS goal -- she was apparently flat on her back when she knocked in the overtime winner vs. Saint Mary's on Friday. The Gee-Gees are 2-0 in their weekend trip to Halifax entering their final game vs. No. 4 St. Francis Xavier today.
  • Gaels: The Whig-Standard's Brock Harrison has a lengthy Saturday feature on Queen's tandem, Ryan Gibb and Brady Morrison -- "the two best goalies in the province, maybe in the entire country," in the word of Gaels forward Jeff Ovens.

    Queen's ended up with just one point out a home weekend, but is tied for first in the division with RMC.

    From here, it looks like it's becoming a trying season for the Queen's women, who lost a three-goal lead in a 3-3 tie with Waterloo on Saturday.

    Not that the guys have it easy with no home rink and 8 a.m. practices, but remember, the women's team practices before they do, 6:30 a.m. at arenas located off-campus. That's not much fun for a struggling team. (The goal that got Waterloo back into the game came from 18-year-old rookie Mandy Harrop, who hails from a former stamping ground, Simcoe.)
FOOTBALL

  • Gee-Gees: U of O QB Josh Sacobie, who's embraced a role as a spokesman for aboriginals, will be a keynote speaker on Parliament Hill during National Child Day on Monday. This means the world to Sacobie, so wish him well in his advocacy efforts.
  • Semi-final Saturday: Is covered over at The CIS Blog. The cable was out at work. So is Western in the Vanier Cup now or what?

5 comments:

Tyler King said...

"Not that the guys have it easy with no home rink, but remember, the women's team practices before they do, often at 6:30 a.m. at arenas located off-campus."

The women have always practiced early in the morning.

The men currently practice at 8 am, also at arenas located off-campus.

sager said...

Come on, Tyler, at least be totally aware of the irony of you making that comment at 3:12 a.m.

Relatively speaking, that sounds pretty hard to deal with as a player when there's no rink on campus, especially when the team hasn't been winning.

Tyler King said...

3:12 AM on a saturday!

Tyler King said...

But a note on the Whig-Standard - they do a profile on the Gaels' goalies and they get shelled. They did one on Dan Village before the end of last season and he had major field goal trouble this year. They did one on Marty Gordon before this season and he barely got to play. They did one on Rob Bagg making the Roughriders, and an hour later it was announced he was actually coming back to Queen's because he wouldn't get to stay long-term with Saskatchewan.

Is it just me or are they the worst jinx in the country?

sager said...

That's the nature of sportswriting... the Toronto Sun wrote all about how great Michael Bishop was in the '97 Fiesta Bowl, and how he was a proven big-game performer because of a bowl game 10 years ago.

Then the Argos scored nine points.