Faster than a silver bullet (okay, only as fast)
There were no overwhelming individual finishes for the Varsity Blues women’s cross country team at the CIS championships in Sherbrooke this past weekend, but that just makes their team silver medal all the more remarkable. With 126 points overall (lower being better) the Blues outdistanced McGill by five points and OUA champs Guelph by six points, finishing only behind Victoria, winners of their second straight gold medal at nationals. Suzanne Garrett finished a team-best 18th, leading a quartet of top-40 finishers from the Blues, including Sasha Gollish (19th), Liz Ben-Ishai (21st) and Anne-Marie Barnes (39th).
Kick ass soccer stars
Defender Anthony Capotosto led a quartet of Blues representing the CIS soccer all-star selections with his first team honours. Midfielder Jeff Ormonde, forward Tom Kouzmanis and goalie Yuri Elkaim earned second team all-CIS selections, giving U of T representation at every position on the field. Elkaim also was named OUA Final Four MVP a week earlier after backstopping the Blues to the bronze medal at that tournament. St. Mary’s copped two of the biggest awards up for grabs as Mesut Mert was named player of the year and Stewart Galloway won coach of the year honours.
Fencing in the competition
The Varsity Blues fencing team had a strong first weekend in November at the RMC Open, as the men’s Foil Team (Thomas Nguyen, Michael Hassett, Alan Reed, Felix Yeung) and men’s Epee Team (Alan Fein, Ozge Uncu, Keith Cheung, Rodrigo Fielder) both won bronze medals, while the women’s Sabre Team (Sabrina Natarajan, Leonie Soltay, Lana Lovasic, Catherine Migliore) finished a solid fourth. The Blues also narrowly missed the overall title, finishing just two points behind Queen’s.
Mac knocks off defending football champs
It was a matchup worthy of a national championship showdown as Ontario’s two top teams squared off for the OUA Yates Cup football title. McMaster successfully defended their title and at the same time upended last year’s Vanier Cup champions Ottawa by a score of 30-22 Saturday afternoon. Before a capacity crowd of 5,922 at McMaster’s Les Prince Field, Vaughan Swart had a career game with seven catches for 201 yards and three touchdown hookups with quarterback Ben Chapdelaine, who had 290 passing yards and four touchdowns, while Kojo Aidoo racked up 111 yards on the ground. Ottawa showed plenty of offensive firepower as well, led by 217 rushing yards for Jean-Philippe Davilmar, but three interceptions thrown by quarterback David Azzi proved too much to overcome as the Gee Gees turned the ball over five times in total. Next up the Marauders will head west to face the winner of Sunday’s Manitoba-Regina Canada West final in the Churchill Bowl national semi-final next Saturday. The winner of that game advances to the Vanier Cup at SkyDome to face the winner of the Laval-St. Mary’s semi-final, which is set for next Saturday in Halifax.
