Both our women's and men's soccer teams went into the weekend with identical 7-0 records. They would face their toughest tests yet on the road in the GTA against the Seneca Sting and Centennial Colts on back to back days. In both cases, Seneca and Centennial are amongst the top teams in the OCAA East, meaning the results would go a long way in determining the standings going into the playoffs.
VS Seneca
On Saturday October 4th, the Wolves visited the Seneca Sting at Newnham Field. This was a battle between the 2 remaining undefeated teams in the East after the Sting handed the Centennial Colts their 1st loss earlier in the week. It was a good test for the Wolves going up against the back to back OCAA champions.
Both teams appeared to be evenly matched in the 1st half with the lone goal going to the Sting in the 19th minute, a 1-nil lead that they would take into halftime. The Wolves came out of the locker room pushing for the equalizer and they found it early in the 47th minute. OCAA assist leader Kassandra Da Cruz added to her tally finding Wolves leading scorer Alex Aubin for her 12th of the season. Seneca was able to regain the lead in the 55th minute. With Algonquin needing to push to find the equalizer, Seneca was able to find a couple more cracks in the armour to score 2 goals in the final minutes on route to a 4-1 win. Needless to say, this game was much closer than the final score would indicate.
VS Centennial
With not much time to rest, the Wolves were back at it on Sunday October 5th in Scarborough to take on the Centennial Colts in a very important matchup. A win would guarantee Algonquin a top 2 spot in the OCAA East going into the playoffs.
Kassandra Da Cruz had her stamp all over this one. The Wolves 3rd year midfielder was involved in her team's 1st 3 goals of the match. She opened the scoring in the 29th minute when she came up with a steal just past midfield and would take it all the way to the top of the box before sending a right footed strike into the top corner of the net. Moments later Da Cruz would come up with another steal deflecting it to Samantha Jones who would find the back of the net scoring her 4th of the season in her return to the lineup. Kassandra's 8th assist on the season gave her the OCAA lead going into the final week of the regular season. The Orleans, Ontario native wasn't done yet. In the 34th minute she created another Colts turnover and scored her 4th goal of the season and 2nd of the game on almost identical plays from the same spot as her 1st goal. The Wolves looked to have all momentum going into the half until Centennial scored in the 45th minute on a free kick to cut the Algonquin lead to 2 going into the half. The Wolves were able to answer back early in the 2nd half when rookie Liana Farrell received a ball that was deflected after a corner kick and scored her 1st goal of her young career to push the Algonquin lead back to 3. The Colts would make things interesting scoring in the 54th minute and again in the 90th off a penalty kick but that is as close as they would get. Wolves keeper Paige King was crucial in the win with 8 saves.
With the Win the Wolves improve to 8-1 and are firmly positioned to finish in the top 2 of the OCAA East. They will be back in action on Saturday October 11th at 1:00 pm at the Algonquin Sports Field when they finish off the season against the George Brown Huskies. Make sure to come early as we will be honouring our graduating seniors prior to kick-off.
Get your tickets here: TICKETS