Banner Season: Marauders, Gaels punch tickets to Saturday's semifinals
London, Ont. - The first chapter of the OUA water polo championship took to the WSRC Pool on Friday in the form of two quarterfinal clashes. While the third-seeded Queen's Gaels took care of business with a strong offensive outing, the host Western Mustangs were unable to do the same in front of their home crowd, falling to the No. 5 McMaster Marauders in their opener.
McMaster 8 vs. Western 7
The McMaster Marauders picked up a pair of late goals, one on a penalty shot to pick up an 8-7 victory over the host Western Mustangs on Friday night.
McMaster’s Jonathan Spence led the offence with goals in the 2nd and 3rd quarters and added a pair of goals in the 4th quarter on route to the win.
Spence got the penalty shot with 2:30 left in the game and didn’t miss it.
“Both teams are very familiar with each other so I think both coaches took their strategic approach early on until the other side figure out what the other was doing,” said McMaster Head Coach Quinn Fairly “We we’re here a couple weeks ago and it was an 11-10 game and tonight an 8-7 final, I can’t ask for anything more.”
Rick Vermeulen bookended the Mustangs offence including the opening marker of the game with 5:38 left in the 1st, he would also get the Mustangs seventh goal of the game. Vermeulen had a second goal in the 1st and another in the 2nd quarter.
“We always knew it was going to be a tight game, McMaster is a tough team,” said Mustangs Head Coach Bill Terzis “Our boys played with heart and left it all in the pool and we just got beat”.
With the win, McMaster moves on to play the 3-time defending OUA Champion Toronto Varsity Blues in the semi-final. Game time is 1:00 pm on Saturday at the Western Student Recreation Centre Pool.
Queen’s 15 vs. Ottawa 9
The Queen’s Gaels rode a hot start to the game to a 15-9 win over the uOttawa Gee-Gees on Friday night in their quarter-final game at the 2019 OUA Water Polo Championship.
Although uOttawa’s Carter Vijh opened the scoring, Queen’s scored seven straight goals and held an 8-2 lead at the half.
Alexandre Le Blanc topped the Gaels offence with five goals on the night including a pair in the 2nd quarter.
“Our players knew that if this game was going to be close it would be because we allowed that to happen by our own mistakes” said Queen’s Head Coach Dave Hill “When we had a sizeable lead, we laid back and then mistakes started to happen and we allowed them (uOttawa) back into the game”.
The Gee-Gee’s had 5 goals from Raphael Siegel who had four in the 4th quarter as the Ottawa tried to mount a comeback.
Queen’s now moves into the semi-final tomorrow afternoon against the Carleton Ravens.
“One of the things we struggled with tonight was the powerplay and that’s something we have been doing really well with the last couple weeks in training,” said Hill “We controlled the ball under pressure well tonight and our shots from outside were improved so we hope to carry that into tomorrow”.
Game time is 2:30 pm at the Western Student Recreation Centre Pool.