Well, the first half of our season is over now. We finished OUA Eastern conference league play with a mediocre 5-3 record. The past three months have been filled with many ups and downs. A winless weekend in Rochester back in October certainly marked our rock bottom. However, the team rebounded back from the October blues and found its second wind for the first half of league play. We opened the season with two convincing wins over Laurentian and York at home, which helped us get off to a good start in addition to gaining positive momentum heading forward. Although we dropped two games the following weekend to U of Ottawa, and the number one ranked Carleton Ravens, we left the nations capital having gained a valuable experience. Losing by only 11 points to the Gee-Gee’s and 8 points to the Ravens it is clear that we have to talent and athleticism to compete with the top teams in the country. As a team we must commit to defence and sharp offensive execution in order to achieve success at the highest level. The following weekend we bounced back with 2 monumental wins, the first coming against RMC on Friday night followed by another against a tough Queen’s team Saturday afternoon. We knew this weekend would be huge for us and two wins would make all the difference as opposed to splitting the weekend going 1 and 1. Going into the half up by only 1 Saturday we knew it was going to be a fight coming down stretch. Thankfully, Coach Campbell’s inspiring halftime pep talk elevated us to the next level, as we went on to outscore Queen’s 26-14 in the third quarter which would ultimately decided the game.
This past weekend we travelled to Toronto to take on Ryerson and UofT. Unfortunately we came away 1-1, with a win against Ryerson on Friday, and loosing to UofT Saturday evening. Saturday’s loss was a real let down, mostly due to the fact that it was a game we were completely capable of winning. We managed to get away at the half with a 2 point lead, however, in the second half our defense crumbled. UofT has some big time shooters. We did a poor job a challenging their looks in the second half which ended up costing us the game.
So with OUA East league play in books its time for us to start preparing for the REAL season that’s ahead of us. I refer to the West as our real season because that’s when the real fun begins. The true rivalries go head to head, and each battle is taken a little more personally. As Christmas exams quickly sneak up on all of us, we’ve got this week off from practice to catch up school work and prepare for mid-year exams, in addition to refocusing mentally for the second half of the season that awaits us. That being said, we are still in weight room working on our strength, and our December schedule is peppered with mandatory practice times to ensure our endurance doesn’t slip.
I’m looking forward to OUA West league play and building on our success. Together the team will challenge each other and compete with one another everyday in preparation for victory. Have a safe and happy holidays.
All the best,
Garrett Olexiuk
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