UOIT beats Queen’s to win first U Sports medal in school history

WOLFVILLE, N.S. – The UOIT women's soccer team's historic season came to an end on Sunday afternoon with a 1-0 victory over the Queen's Gaels in the bronze medal match to claim both the program and school's first medal at a U Sports national championship.
 
"What an accomplishment for everyone involved with the program," said UOIT manager of intercollegiate athletics Scott Barker. "The entire team has worked so hard to accomplish their goals. It is hard to believe that just five years ago our team was taking the field for the first time. For our graduating seniors to end their career with a national medal is quite the feat."
 
Sunday's bronze medal game was a rematch of the Ontario University Athletics (OUA) championship final in which UOIT won 1-0 in London.
  
Third-year midfielder Katherine Koehler-Grassau's (Greely, Ont.) goal on a left-footed mid-range shot in the 59^th minute ended up being the game's lone goal. UOIT turned in a close-checking second half to make that narrowest of possible advantages stand up the rest of the way.
 
Helen Frampton (Toronto, Ont.) recorded the shutout, her second clean sheet of the national tournament. Queen's goalkeeper Madison Tyrell (White Rock, B.C.) recorded a pair of saves from seven UOIT shots.
 
The Gaels had a couple of decent chances in the closing minutes, but UOIT managed to close out the shutout victory.
 
Speaking after the game, Koehler-Grassau confirmed this was only UOIT's second-ever appearance at the U Sports nationals, and the bronze was the school's first-ever medal. The Ridgebacks last attended a U Sports Championship in 2014, losing to Trinity Western and Montreal.
 
"It feels really good," she said, adding, "we weren't going to lose today."
 
Koehler-Grassau, who was named a CIS All-Canadian earlier in the week, said UOIT and Queen's had gone head-to-head four times this season, including their conference final.
 
She acknowledged, "It made us a bit nervous, where we'd already beaten them three times, but our goal going in was to work our hardest and see what happened. This year was already the best we'd ever done, so we really had nothing to lose, but even though it was tied, everyone kept working hard."
 
UOIT, she said, "had a good feeling. We knew it was within our reach, and it felt really good to win."
 
As for the key to victory, Koehler-Grassau said, "we went in hard for every ball, and kept the ball in play. We stuck together, and didn't let ourselves get down on each other." As well, "we do fitness year-round, so being in shape wasn't an issue." despite playing their third game in four days.
 
This was the Ridgebacks only match at the national tournament that did not need overtime to solve a winner. UOIT beat Trinity Western 1-0 in the quarter-finals followed by a 2-1 loss to Laval in the semifinals.