Three-peat in sight

Gaels overwhelm Gee-Gees, advance to CIS final for third straight year

Everything fell into place for the women’s soccer team, at just the right time.

They overcame the previously unbeaten Ottawa Gee-Gees 4-1 in Friday’s CIS semi-final, to play for CIS gold for the third straight year. The Dalhousie Tigers did the same between 1993-95, winning gold in ’94.

“The result had so much more to do with us then it did with them,” said second year Gaels striker Breanna Burton. “We were all 100 per cent healthy this time around.”

The Gaels fell to the Gee-Gees 3-0 on Sept. 2, and they drew 0-0 on Oct. 19th in regular season play. Not only were the Gee-Gees undefeated, but they had conceded only two goals before Friday in 20 games – including OUA regular season and playoffs.

The 4-1 loss was double that amount, which Burton said was the objective heading in.

“I remember sitting in the change room and someone going, ‘come on guys let’s just double that amount’ – then we were pumped to do that,” she said.

The Gee-Gees struck first in the 22nd minute, when CIS player of the year Gillian Baggott curled a free kick just out of Gaels keeper Madison Tyrell’s reach. Fourth year Gaels midfielder Alexis Mckinty banged home a rebound seven minutes later to tie.

The go-ahead goal came in the 51st minute – a top-corner drive struck by Burton from outside the box. She replicated her tally four minutes later, using the defender as a screen to score bottom corner from the same spot.

“They were still pushing hard but they gave me a fair amount of space so I figured I’d let one rip,” Burton said. “Realistically I guess the same thing happened the second time.”

In the 79th minute, co-captain Riley Filion hit a free kick just under the crossbar from 20 yards out to make it 4-1.

“They set up the wall, and we knew [Filion] was going to be able to hit it exactly where she wanted,” Burton said. “That’s exactly what she did.”

With a day off to prepare, the Gaels will face the Trinity Western Spartans in the championship game on Sunday.

The game can be viewed online at cis-sic.tv.

Tags

Burton, Filion, Gaels, Women's soccer

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