Latest OUA soccer seasons set to start with August 29th openers

Burlington, Ont. – The beautiful game will be back in no time, as the 2024-25 Ontario University Athletics (OUA) soccer seasons get underway on August 29th, 2024.

2024-25 OUA Women’s Soccer Schedule
2024-25 OUA Men’s Soccer Schedule

Powering their way onto the pitch for those season-opening matches in the West will be the Waterloo Warriors and Guelph Gryphons, while those on the East will need until the following day to score their first results of the year. 

Among those competing on those August 30th openers are the back-to-back OUA women’s champions, as Ottawa will welcome Laurentian to the nation’s capital to begin their quest for a three-peat. Just a week later on September 8th, the Gee-Gees will collide with East rival Queen’s in an OUA championship rematch.

The Gaels, who finished as finalists on the women's side a year ago will also start their season on August 30th, opening against Ontario Tech, while men's runners up from 2023, the York Lions, will play host to McMaster to commence their campaign.

2023 men's victors - the Carleton Ravens - will look to take their first step back to the battle for a Blackwood Cup in their opening fixture with Nipissing on August 31st.

Despite there being no championship rematch during the men’s regular season, meanwhile, the Ravens will face several tough tests along their quest for repeat provincial glory, and one of the toughest may come in Week 3, when they go toe-to-toe with the second-ranked team in the group last season – the Ridgebacks. That must-see matchup with take place in Oshawa on September 14th.

That game will be the first of an arduous back-to-back that weekend for the Ridgebacks. The following day, they will play the TMU Bold in a rematch of last year’s closely-contested men’s quarterfinal that ended in Ontario Tech’s favour in penalty kicks.

A pair of top women’s teams in the West, meanwhile, will be featured on the Friday night slate of Week 3 play (September 13th), as the Marauders and Western Mustangs face off in Hamilton in a bronze medal rematch from a season ago – one that ended with the visiting purple and white claiming the conference’s third-place result.

The Marauders will also be in tough when they go up against the Gryphons later in the campaign, with the two sides finishing with identical records on both the men’s and women’s side a year ago. That double-header will come in the penultimate week of regular season action on October 4th.

Following that, the seventh and final week of play will feature another battle of top teams from a year ago, with York and Brock – the former having won their semifinal in penalties and the latter having lost theirs in similar fashion – helping to wrap up the regular season slate on October 13th.

With every team’s 12-game regular season then in the rearview, the focus will then turn to the postseason, which gets underway the following weekend. Round 1 games will take place on October 19th, followed by the quarterfinals on October 23rd and semifinals on October 26th.

The quests for the cup will come to a conclusion on Saturday, November 2nd, when both a men’s and women’s soccer champion will be crowned in their respective season finales.