HOOPS
- Gee-Gees: Just nine turnovers and only four missed free throws on the road in the playoffs -- that's why Ottawa and not Toronto is headed to the OUA East final after the Gee-Gees won 63-60 on Sunday (Josh Gibson-Bascombe had 19 points, eight rebounds, six steals and five assists in 39 minutes). When they can do that, you start wondering if it was meant to be.
It's too bad for the U of T -- the best team not to go to the Final 8 for two years running.
(The U of T women's team is headed to nationals, though. Kyla Burwash, from the Ottawa area and a former Golden Gael, hit the game-tying three-pointer with 29 seconds left in an eventual overtime win over York in the OUA East final on Sunday.) - Ravens: The final score, 96-44, read like the blood pressure of a very unhealthy person. You'd almost think Carleton's Kingston guys — Rob Saunders and Stu Turnbull with 17 points apiece, Aaron Doornekamp hooping 14 in just 17 minutes — had something to prove. Carleton is always at their scariest coming off a game where they didn't feel they performed to expectations, which is probably how that surprise squeaker vs. Ottawa last week could be categorized. There's not much more for us to say.
It's the 300th career win for Dave Smart at Carleton — congrats are in order. - Gaels: Bottom line, Queen's should have nothing to hang their heads over, despite the score tonight. Rob Smart's team actually has people in Kingston who aren't directly tied to Queen's talking about basketball for probably the first time in a long while and that's no mean feat. It's a good, young team and replacing one or both of the Mitchell brothers will be no easy task, but the program's headed in a good direction. Simon Mitchell, the senior, had 13 points tonight in his likely valedictory.
- Napanee's Matteke Hutzler, the sophomore forward for the Simon Fraser's women's team, got plenty of pub from the Vancouver Province on Saturday. (There's another paper that has a blog dedicated to university coverage. It's always good to see someone else implement ideas that got ignored when you suggested them in your workplace more than a year ago.)
- Gaels: Queen's Melissa John stopped 78-of-82 shots over two games against Laurier and it wasn't enough, as the Golden Hawks won 1-0 tonight to complete a sweep of the OUA semi-final.
- Ravens: What, sweeping Ottawa to win their first playoff series wasn'tmemorable enough for Carleton -- they also had to play four OTs?
The Ravens' Kerri Palmer scored a power-play goal after 59:27 of overtime to end the longest Quebec conference women's hockey game ever.
Talk about a strange game. Kaila Lassaline, a rookie for Carleton who didn't have a goal in the regular season, had two by the end of the first period. Ottawa's Melissa DiPetta stopped 57 shots in the marathon, while Carleton's Valerie Charbonneau blocked 53.
(Devil's advocate: Queen's and Carleton might have better teams than Ottawa, who's hosting nationals.)
WOMEN'S HOCKEY
MEN'S HOCKEY
- Gee-Gees: Trois-Rivieres did their thing, getting their usual three power-play goals to race out in front 4-1, and then playing possum for the last two periods. The Gee-Gees played a good second period but couldn't cut into the lead. On a 4-on-4 late in the frame, Rob Jarvis came in off the point and had the goalie, Sylvain Michaud (lucky No. 13 -- never seen that on a goalie), beat, but lost the puck before he could complete the deke and cut the lead to one goal. A minute later, Trois-Rivieres' Samuel Beland scored the eventual series-winner.
- Gaels: McGill winning tonight 2-0 to complete the sweep of Queen's (but they won their division!) was probably no surprise. Ryan Gibb stopped 42-of-44 in a losing cause for the Golden Gaels. Gatineau native Mathieu Poitras had the 23-save shutout and even assisted on the clinching goal.
The Whig had a story on Friday that captured what both Queen's hockey teams dealt with this season, splitting home games between two arenas off-campus (the men's team even went to a third rink to practise).
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4 comments:
The Gaels' women's hockey team lost 1-0 to Laurier in OT tonight, ending their season... they got just 16 shots for to 36 against, so it sounds pretty similar to the game I saw and wrote about last night in Napanee. Great goaltending matchup of Laurier's Liz Knox (averaging less than a goal per game with a .944 save percentage during the season) against Queen's Melissa John (primarily responsible for one of Laurier's only two losses during the regular season, and named CIS athlete of the week for doing so). Laurier should be favorites against Toronto in the finals, but the Blues should make it close (they finished second during the season). Pretty embarrasing loss for Queen's men's basketball: I was hoping it would at least be close. As you pointed out, certainly a great year and an up-and-coming program, though.
"Wouldn't it do a lot more for drama and media attention if Trois-Rivieres, which completed a sweep of Ottawa with a 6-4 win tonight, met McGill (who ousted Queen's) in a best-of-3 series to decide who went to the nationals? Doing it the way it's done now, just for the sake of a trophy, seems assbackwards."
Neate, are you under the impression that the UQTR-McGill series isn't "a best-of-3 series to decide who went to the nationals"? Because that's what it is.
Both the OUA East and West finals are best-of-three, and the winners of both get places in the University Cup. Then the winners of each conference face off in a one-game Queen's Cup final which has no impact on the University Cup berths.
Tyler, sorry, sometimes I date myself ... I was told that it was a Final Four at the home of the highest-seeded OUA West school, which is how they used to do it.
I'll get this updated ASAP. Thanks for saving me from making more of an ass of myself than usual.
Yikes, who on earth could've been the source of such inaccuracy? The Queen's Journal? :P
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