Women’s soccer second in OUA East

Ninth-straight win and seventh-straight shutout sees women’s soccer ranked sixth in the country

The women’s soccer team extended their winning streak to nine games after beating the Nipissing Lady Lakers 1-0 and the Laurentian Lady Vees 2-0 last weekend on the road. With clean sheets on Saturday and Sunday, goalkeepers Elena Corry and Chantal Marson haven’t allowed a goal in more than six games, a time of 594 consecutive minutes.

Against Nipissing on Saturday, striker Renée MacLellan broke a scoreless deadlock in the 71st minute to give Queen’s all the offense they needed. MacLellan continued her golden touch as she opened the scoring on Sunday against Laurentian with midfielder Chantal McFetridge adding an insurance marker in the second half to put the Lady Vees away. MacLellan moved to third in OUA scoring with eights goals on the season.

Queen’s sits in second place in the OUA East with a record of 10-1-1, one point behind the University of Ottawa Gee-Gees. The Gaels have one game in hand. The women’s soccer team is also now ranked sixth in the country.

Captain Kelli Chamberlain was pleased with the results given the long travel up to North Bay and Sudbury.

“The northern trips are always pretty difficult for us,” she said. “We usually end up with ties or not very good results but we ended up pulling through. They weren’t spectacular wins.”

The Gaels suffered from a bout of bus legs before bringing up the intensity in the first game, Chamberlain said.

After beating Nipissing 3-1 and Laurentian 3-0 earlier in the season, Chamberlain said the Gaels made sure they were mentally prepared to play strong.

“We know that we’re stronger than them, seeing that we’ve beaten them quite handily earlier in the season, it is just going up north is always mentally difficult,” she said.

Queen’s team defence was on full display again over the weekend, as it has been for the better part of the season. Chamberlain said the Gaels’ defence is the main reason they’re so high in the standings.

“So far we’re doing really well in the back,” Chamberlain said. “Our goaltending has been phenomenal. Our back line is doing well, we’ve got a solid back four who are keeping the shots from outside the box and when they do get through our goalies are stepping up.”

MacLellan’s contributions on the offensive side of the ball haven’t gone unnoticed.

“Renée is our oldest player and she’s definitely doing what she came back to do,” Chamberlain said. “She’s scoring lots of goals and she’s really helping out our team by being a good leader.”

Chamberlain said there’s always room for improvement and this week in practice the team will focus on keeping up their intensity for the whole game.

“All teams kind of have a little lapse in the middle of the game and we’ve been doing pretty good at minimizing that, but I think this weekend we have to make sure we’re at our best,” she said.

Queen’s has a much more challenging weekend as the Carleton Ravens, 6-6-1, and the Gee-Gees, 10-1-2, travel to Richardson Stadium.

“We’re really excited for this weekend,” Chamberlain said. “It’s going to be a big weekend, a tough one. We’re definitely ready for it. We haven’t played Carleton yet and we know they’re going to be good and then get prepared for Ottawa. We’re hoping for two more wins this weekend.”

The Gaels kick off the weekend this afternoon against the Ravens at 3 p.m. before facing Ottawa at 1 p.m. on Sunday. Both games are at Richardson Stadium.

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