Women’s soccer team will look to continue strong season
On Sept. 17, the Gee-Gees women’s soccer team will cross the canal to take on their archrivals, the Carleton Ravens. The Gees are currently ranked fourth in the U Sports Top 10, while the Ravens are unranked nationally.
Both teams are coming off of away games against the Royal Military College (RMC) and the nationally fifth-ranked Queen’s University.
The Gee-Gees are looking good to start the year—especially on the defensive end—as they have recorded two clean sheets and only allowed two goals against through their first four games. The only blemish on the Gee-Gees’ record so far this year has been against the University of Ontario Institute of Technology, who is currently ranked second in the country.
Gee-Gees defender Lauren Da Luz, a second-year civil engineering student, shared her expectations going into the rest of the season, saying, “the expectations that our team has put forward are that we are going to win Ontario University Athletics, we’re going to win nationals and we are going to have the least amount of goals scored against us.”
It’s obvious that the Gees have set their sights high this year, and will be looking to move up the national rankings as the new season progresses.
“We have showed that we can dominate teams whether we’re scoring a low amount of goals or it’s a high scoring game,” said Da Luz. “ And we have showed that even though we are a smaller team, that we can be physical and we can dominate teams in the air and on the ground.”
The Gee-Gees have benefitted from strong goaltending to start the season. Coming into this weekend’s games, third-year goaltender Margot Shore was rocking a 0.33 GAA, good for second in the country among goalies who have played at least three games. Her .917 save percentage is nothing to sneeze at either, putting her fourth in the country among goalies with at least three games played.
On the other side of the matchup, the Carleton Ravens have had a mediocre start to the year. So far, the Ravens’ biggest problem has been keeping the ball out of their net, having let nine balls cross the goal line in four games coming into this past weekend.
The Gee-Gees offence has struggled at times, but they have also shown the ability to explode and capitalize against weak defence, as evident from their 6–0 thrashing of Ryerson.
The Gees are led offensively by third-year midfielder Katherine Bearne, second-year forward Emma Lefebvre, and fourth-year forward Delaney Rickert-Hall, who entered Saturday’s game against RMC with three points apiece.
A Carleton and University of Ottawa matchup is always an exciting event to mark your calendars with, and this edition of the epic rivalry promises to be no different, especially with the Gee-Gees currently occupying a spot in the U Sports Top 10.
The game is Sunday Sept. 17 at 1 p.m. at Carleton. The Gee-Gees next home game is not until Oct. 7.
