VOYAGEURS HEAT UP WITH THREE STRAIGHT WINS
Two of the OUA's nationally-ranked teams kept their unbeaten records intact after the third week of play with the No. 2 Toronto Varsity Blues defeating the Ryerson Rams 2-0 Sunday to improve to 5-0-0 on the year and the No. 3 Western Mustangs picking up six points from a 3-2 win over the Laurier Golden Hawks and a 3-1 victory over the Waterloo Warriors. Mike Bialy and Evan Milward netted for the East-leading Blues in their win over the rival Rams, while Luciano Lombardi posted the shut-out in the Toronto goal.
The two Western wins kept the No. 3 Mustangs comfortably atop the OUA West with 16 points, five ahead of the No. 8 Brock Badgers, who stumbled with a 2-0 loss to the York Lions. Michel Daoust, Jason De Thomasis and Adam Legg all scored for the Mustangs in the road win over the Hawks. Daoust, a third-year striker from Wheatley River, PEI, scored two more times against the Warriors to bring his season total to five goals in six matches. De Thomasis had the other Western goal, his third of the year. First-team OUA all-star Haidar Al-Shaibani was in net for both wins.
After going five straight games to start the season without conceding a goal, the Badgers back end was finally breached Sunday. York's Luca Forno scored in the 35th minute and David Nogaro provided another right before the break to give the host a huge win against a staunch defensive side. Arthur Zaslavski made five saves for the shut-out. Like Laurentian, York started the season badly with four consecutive losses but they finally found the win column Saturday with a decisive 5-1 win over the McMaster Marauders thanks to a Douglas Sereti hat-trick. Nogaro and Andre Dasilva had the other two goals, while Mark Badrou scored for McMaster.
Before dropping their first of the season to York, the Badgers enjoyed a dominating second half to blank the Guelph Gryphons 4-0. Dan Macuzza, Odean Thompson, Will Gott and Brian Edgar all scored in the second half to run away from the Gryphons. Guelph also lost 1-0 to McMaster Sunday, with Rajbir Rai scoring the lone goal of the match for McMaster.
The Windsor Lancers began their week on a high with a 4-0 win over the Warriors. Gino Berardi, Mike Rose, Nick Earnshaw and Kwame Owusu-Ofuri scored for the Lancers. But Windsor couldn't keep the momentum up in their second stop on the Waterloo road trip, losing to the Hawks 1-0 Sunday. Laurier scoring sensation Damir Hadziavdic had the only goal of the match, his third in six games. The win improves the Hawks record to 2-2-2, good for fourth in the West.
Elsewhere around the OUA, the Carleton Ravens got the full six points from their two matches with the Trent Excalibur this weekend, winning 4-0 Saturday and 1-0 the following day. Trent earned their first win of the season with a 2-0 victory over Ryerson last Wednesday. Queen's defeated Nipissing 3-1 Saturday but the Lakers rebounded with a 2-0 win over RMC Sunday. Alagie Gaye and Mustafa Zafarzadeh had the Nipissing goals.
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(Photo: Laurier midfielder Imran Ahmed races around two Mustang midfielders. Photo by Mike Whitehouse.)