Weekend Watch | It's win-or-go-home for Western in final regular season game
Toronto, Ont. (via 49 Sports) - The McCaw Cup playoffs are officially in sight. There are now ten total games left to be played in the 2022-23 regular season as the final week has arrived after a long year.
Almost everything in the playoffs is set. The Varsity Blues have had the top spot in the OUA East division locked up for the better part of a month, and on the other side, a win for Waterloo in their last game against Nipissing would seal up the OUA West title.
A few pieces to the McCaw Cup puzzle have yet to be put in place, however, so let’s break down the key things that are still unsolved heading into the season’s final days.
It’s win-or-go-home for the Western Mustangs
In their battle for the final playoff spot in the West with the Brock Badgers, the Western Mustangs have generally held the place for more of the season as the two sides have flip-flopped on a near-weekly basis.
Unfortunately for Western, they enter their last game of the season, a meeting with the Badgers on Friday night at Western, tied at 31 points apiece for the final spot. Why is that a problem? Because although Friday night marks the end of the Mustangs’ regular season, the Badgers still take the trip up the 401 to Toronto to take on the York Lions on Saturday.
That means the Mustangs are out of time. The only way for Western to guarantee themselves a spot in the McCaw Cup playoffs would be a win in regulation on Friday night. Even an overtime win would allow the Badgers the chance to pass them the following night, and a loss would outright end their season.
If the Mustangs fall short on Friday, they’ll look back on their matchup against Ontario Tech on February 10th as the one that got away. The Mustangs and Ridgebacks played to a tight 2-2 tie until Hannah Irwin was called for a hooking penalty with 15 seconds to play. Then, with 11 seconds left in the third period, Nicole Escano fired a shot past Kaitlyn Booth, keeping the Ridgebacks’ playoff dreams in their division alive.
The good news for the Mustangs is they bounced back the next night as a goal and an assist from Haylie Kirkpatrick helped them to a 3-1 win over the Queen’s Gaels, but with no time left, even just picking up one point against Ontario Tech would have changed the entire scope of this upcoming weekend.
TMU, Queen’s battle with tough Toronto test on deck
Sometimes the schedule has a way of working itself out perfectly. The final weekend in the West division is the climax of the battle between Western and Brock for the last spot in the division. On the other side in the East, Saturday night sees the TMU Bold and Queen’s Gaels square off, with the loser guaranteed a quarterfinal matchup against the Toronto Varsity Blues.
Like the Western Mustangs, the Queen’s Gaels could have made the upcoming weekend much more straightforward for themselves. Entering the home stretch leading TMU by a single point, a pair of wins could have pushed their lead to an almost insurmountable margin, but after a 4-2 win over Wilfrid Laurier on Friday night, the Gaels dropped a 3-1 decision to the Mustangs. Subsequently, this meant TMU had an opening, but after starting with a 2-1 win over York on Friday night, they followed it up with an underwhelming 1-0 loss to Brock.
Fast forward to the present, with the Gaels at 34 points and the Bold at 33. The Ontario Tech Ridgebacks are also still mathematically alive at 28 points in fifth place, but would need to win both of their remaining games and have TMU pick up one or fewer points in their final two tilts. So indeed, this is very much a two-horse race, and the prize for the loser is a trip to Varsity Arena to take on one of the top-ranked teams in the country, the Toronto Varsity Blues.
Funnily enough, the Bold’s penultimate game before they host the Gaels on Saturday night? A trip across town to Varsity Arena to play the Blues. It could almost be poetic if TMU were to beat their cross-town rivals and, in doing so, force the Gaels into playing those same powerhouse Blues come playoff time.
It’s the beauty of the chaos of the final week of the regular season on full display. Buckle up.
