Last weekend, the Queen’s men’s and women’s track and field teams traveled to Canton, N.Y., to defend their titles at the St. Lawrence University Open Championships. Both the men’s and women’s
sides entered as defending champions, with the women as two-time champs.

The Queen’s track and field team’s stellar 14-medal performance at their first-ever Cornell meet last Saturday in Ithaca, N.Y., was the setting for Danae Benjamin’s standout performance. She captured silver medals in both the triple jump and long jump events.

The men’s rugby team had a promising regular season, finishing atop the OUA East division. Their strong play carried them through their quarterfinal match against Laurier, but they fell short in the semis against Western. Unfortunately, the Gaels never recovered from the loss, and dropped their bronze medal match to Brock, in similar fashion to last season. However, they can take solace in having a league high six OUA all stars.

With renewed vigour and a killer tan, the men’s volleyball team returned last week from and 11-day road trip. After Christmas, the team headed to Clearwater, Fla., for the Cay Clubs Men’s Volleyball Invitational where they went up against seven other teams, including two NCAA schools.

Despite losing in straight sets to the University of Toronto last Saturday, Chris Galbraith, head coach of the women’s volleyball team, said his team is making progress.

Despite outscoring their opponent 8-4, the women’s hockey team could only win one of two games against the York Lions at home last weekend.

Queen’s men’s and women’s swim teams traveled to Guelph last weekend to compete in their
third meet of the season, the divisional championships.

Amanda Digel (volleyball) and Mitch Ledger (basketball) are the Journal’s Athletes of the Week.

The men’s volleyball team closed the first half of its season last weekend in Toronto, beating York but losing in five sets to the Ryerson Rams. The weekend’s games bring the Gaels record to 8-1.

Last weekend, Queen’s saw first hand what national-calibre hockey looks like, losing a pair of games to last year’s national final runners-up, the Lakehead Thunderwolves, in Thunder Bay. The Thunderwolves won both games 6-2.

The men’s basketball team has carried their stellar pre-season play into the regular season. Last weekend on the road, the Gaels knocked off defending provincial champions McMaster by 11 points and defeated Lakehead by the same margin less than 24 hours later.