Photo Credit: Tom Ewasiuk / AFTN Canada
League1 Canada Women’s Review – Week 14
By With the champions of L1BC, L1AB, and L1ON already decided and fans on the cusp of learning who will represent L1QC at the incoming Interprovincial Championship in Hamilton, this week presented all with thrilling action to entertain Canadian supporters coast to coast.
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Even while the 2024 League1 Canada season slowly winds down, Northern Tribune has you covered on all fronts with our weekly recaps. This week, while I have documented the plethora of women’s games coast to coast, my colleague David Parkes has you covered for all the men’s games, which you can find here!
League1 BC: And Then There Were Two
Whitecaps Girls Elite 4 – 2 TSS Rovers FC
Unity FC 1 – 1 (5-6 PENS) Burnaby FC
Going into the League1 BC Play-offs had the top four seeded teams take on one another in winner-take all, single-game affairs to determine the two finalists. This week also saw two new sides, Evolution FC and Langley United, announced as entrants for the 2025 L1BC season, bringing the league up to nine squads.
It all kicked of on Friday the 26th as the top-ranked Whitecaps Academy took on the fourth-placed TSS Rovers. The undefeated ‘Caps wasted no time taking down their Pirate counterparts, all beginning with the below strike by Kaylee Hunter to put her side on the board. Come the final whistle, the match was no one’s but the Whitecaps’ with Reed, Anderson, and Longhurst all contributing to the 4-2 scoreline to send the side to their third-straight finals.
It was a much tighter affair between league newcomers Burnaby FC and the regular season runners-up met at the Cloverdale Athletic Park for their semi-final bout. Although Unity took an 29′ lead thanks to Sophie Crowther, a penalty in the 81′ allowed Burnaby to tie it up to send the game to kicks from the spot. After Unity’s Katie Pedersen’s shot was stopped by visiting goalkeeper Sarah Loewen in the sixth round, Kaiden Sherwood converted to seal Burnaby’s place in the final in their inaugural season.
League1 Ontario: The Crown Was Too Heavy
This week saw the teams wind down their seasons in the run up to the L1Canada Interprovincial Championship (for the Premiership champions) and the eventual promotional playoff’s for those in all three divisions for those seeking to move up or, for those unlucky enough, to avoid moving down.
We also now know who will be facing off against L1Ontario Champions NDC Ontario in the 2024 edition of the IPC hosted at Hamilton’s Tim Horton’s Field. Drawn Monday live on OneSoccer, it was determined that NDC will be taking on the best side from Ligue1 Québec’s Women’s playoffs whose final will be contested win Saturday August 3rd between CF Montréal and the CS Mont-Royal Outremont Griffons.
League1 Ontario – Premiership
Vaughan Azzurri 2 – 1 NDC Ontario
FC London 4 – 0 NDC Ontario
Simcoe County Rovers 3 – 1 North Mississauga SC
North Toronto Nitros 1 – 3 Guelph United FC
Blue Devils FC 1 – 2 Vaughan Azzurri
Woodbridge Strikers 2 – 2 Alliance United FC
After having confirmed their league title in the matchweek prior, NDC Ontario suffered their first two losses of the 2024 season this week against the Vaughan Azzurri and FC London. Whilst taking on the Azzurri, although NDC’s April Lantaigne opened the scoring in the 19′, Vaughan’s Raimondo and Stambolich struck back to steal all three points, denying NDC a perfect season.
Three days later, as they made the trip down to Tricar Field in the Forest City, the hosting FC London capitalized on the the downward momentum facing NDC and netted four of their own. Astaiza, Kohutm Rowe, and Cromack would serve as hometown heroes in front of a great crowd put the side into second place above North Toronto.
Speaking of North Toronto, they found themselves on the wrong end of a two-goal deficit as they faced off against the 6W-3D-8L Guelph United. The Nitros’ Jade Kovacevic continued her hunt for the Golden Boot and netted her 15th of the season in the 16′. Unfortunately GUFC Gaffer Randy Ribeiro rallied his girls around the 45+2′ goal of Violet Hipkin to net two more, courtesy of Olivia Rizakos and Hipkin again for the brace.
The Simcoe County Rovers continued maintained their current undefeated streak on Saturday as they hosted the North Miss. Panthers. Annika Arsenault highlighted the match with a stellar performance as she netted a brace in the first half. Teammate Michelle Plowman pitched in in the 69′ with her own solo effort, which was only slightly outdone by an added-time goal by the Panthers’ Nyla Dore-Anderson to make it 3-1.
Vaughan carried the momentum from their surprise victory over NDC Ontario into their match against the last-place Blue Devils on Sunday. Vaughan took an early two-goal lead as Torelli and Fleming-Thompson found mesh by the 20′. Oakville’s Georgia Hogan cut the lead in half in the 45+1’but unfortunately for the Blue Devils, that would mark all the goals in this meeting, giving all three points to Vaughan.
Rounding out the action this matchweek, we saw the mid-table Woodbridge Strikers take on an Alliance Un tied side trying to stave-off a relegation play-off match. The first half would be all Strikers as within the first ten minutes, the Homeside had a two-goal advantage thanks to Lisi and Murphy. The second half would then be all Alliance Chelsea Cheung fought hard to get her side back into the match with goals at the 53′ and, crucially, the 83′ to split the points between the two squads.
League1 Ontario – Championship
Pickering FC 0 – 2 Burlington SC
Pickering FC 2 – 3 Scrosoppi FC
Tecumseh United FC 1 – 1 Scrosoppi FC
Unionville Milliken SC 0 – 1 Tecumseh United FC
ProStars FC 2 – 1 BVB IA Waterloo
Darby FC 2 – 4 BVB IA Waterloo
Hamilton United 0 -1 ProStars FC
Unionville Milliken SC 0 – 0 Hamilton United
Rush Canada Academy 2 – 1 Darby FC
Burlington SC 1 – 1 Rush Canada Academy
It was a busy week in the Championship this week with most all the teams doubling up their matches. It all started with Pickering doubling up on their losses to Burlington and Scrosoppi despite decent performances. In the week opener, Cristina Ciofani broke the scrolling five-minutes in and was later aided by Bayhawks teammate Aya Naamani to put Pickering down two-nil. Later in the week, against a Scrosoppi side currently tied for first place, PFC’s Grzesniak and Chiodo would give their side hope but it would not be bough to claw back the lead set by Scrosoppi to lose all six points on the week.
Tecumseh United was then challenged to take on this strong Scrosoppi side that is growing ever stronger. Facing relegation, Tecumseh took the lead in the 29′ to surprise Shayne Griffin’s Scrosoppi side, thanks to the foot of Kailyn Robertson. Not ones to fret, the visiting SFC would fight their way back to a draw thanks to a solo effort by Aalayah Lully in the 48′. Tecumseh were able to sieze all three points later in the week again against a higher-seeded team, this time while taking on Unionville Milliken. A tight, scoreless back-and-forth match between Tecumseh and UMSC would ultimately allow for Leah Tate to play the hero in the dying minutes to give her side their third victory of 2024.
Waterloo’s BVB Academy would go 1W-1L this week as they visited different parts of the GTA taking on ProStars and Darby FC. Whilst at Mattamy Sports Park, the Black and Yellow suffered a heartbreaking loss as what should have been a tie game ultimately went the way of ProStars thanks to a last-minute goal by Teagan Handley for her brace (see above). However, their fortunes were later reversed as they took on Darby with four individual players found mesh to claim the 4-2 victory, keeping BVB IA Waterloo at the top of the table with a game in hand over Scrosoppi.
Hamilton would also suffer defeat to the ProStars in one of their two matches this week as they sit just two points removed from the Promotion conversation. It would take ProStars 52′ to finally break the deadlock in their Saturday meeting with Hamilton United, and no matter how hard the hosts tried, ProStars keeper Stephanie Brooks held her ground to keep the clean sheet. Hamilton would squeak out a single point later on in the week taking on Unionville Milliken. The sides pulled back and forth on the proverbial rope that was this match but in the end, no one faltered and the two sides split the points evenly in a nil-nil draw.
The Rush Canada Academy currently sit in last place and are looking at relegation into League2 for the 2025 season. Seeing this, they know they need all the points they can get, meaning this week was a pretty decent matchweek, capitalizing on 4/6 possible points. Della Weir would be the difference maker in the week opener against Darby as her brace would get the better of Sarah Foster’s opener for Darby, giving Rush the victory to stay alive in the table. Come Sunday and their tie against the Burlington Bayhawks – another side trying to stay afloat – would be bette than nothing with Gauri Rawat netting her side’s only goal while the Bayhawks got one back in the 90+6′ thanks to Sienna Caesar.
League2 Ontario
(Crossover) Blue Devils FC II 5 – 0 Unionville Milliken SC II
(Southwest) Rush Canada Academy II 3 – 1 BVB IA Waterloo II
(Southwest) Blue Devils FC II 4 – 1 Scrosoppi FC II
(Southwest) Guelph Untied FC II 2 – 1 FC London II
(Southwest) Hamilton United II 5 – 0 St. Catharines Roma Wolves
(Southwest) Scrosoppi FC II 2 – 2 Guelph Untied FC II
(Southwest) Burlington SC II 0 – 1 ProStars FC II
(Southwest) FC London II 4 – 0 Hamilton United II
(Southwest) St. Catharines Roma Wolves 2 – 1 Guelph Untied FC II
(Northeast) Vaughan Azzurri II 1 – 2 Alliance United FC II
(Northeast) Pickering FC II 5 – 0 Master’s FA
(Northeast) North Mississauga SC II 3 – 3 Unionville Milliken SC II
(Northeast) Woodbridge Strikers II 4 – 2 North Toronto Nitros II
(Northeast) SC Rovers FC II 1 – 0 Darby FC II
St. Catharines’ women’s side had a turbulent matchweek to saw the least going from lows to highs in a matter of days. Starting the week off against the Southwest division leaders in Hamilton United, the home side would be led by a fantastic showing by Ashley Kraemer whose brace would couple with solo goals by Morcone, Wheeler, and Cunha to sink their Niagara Peninsula rivals 5-0 for the Wolves’ eighth loss of 2024.
Two days later and the Wolves were at home in Club Roma as they faced off against the Royal City’s ‘B’ squad. With Sydney Sica and Terin Hultnik giving their side and early two-goal lead, that’s all that would be needed to claim the win. This would be slightly overshadowed by an Assistant Referee decision in the 68′ to allow for a penalty retake for Mya Chin which then cut the lead in half. You can watch the play above.
Masters’ fortunes were not as lucky as they hosted the third-placed Pickering FC II. Having yet to claim a victory and with a GD of -38, the Master’s women’s squad have struggled to put together a cohesive performance and that was replicated this week in their five-nil loss. Pickering’s Patzer led the charge followed by Pye, Fazzari, Young, and Martin to send pickering into third over the Rovers’ ‘B’ team.
Ligue1 Québec: The Fantastic Final 4
(B1) AS Blainville 2 – 5 (A2) CS Mont-Royal Outremont
(A1) CF Montréal 1 – 0 (B2) Royal Select Beauport
After 16 matches of heart-pounding action, the top two seeds from the two L1Québec conferences met in semi-final action to determine the two sides to play in the league finals. With A1 vs B2 and B1 vs A2, here’s how the games went down to determine your finalists.
The Regular Season Champions in AS Blainville (34 points) were taken a back on Saturday as they took on the Mont-Royal Griffons. Shayla He and former Altitude FC star Alex Hughes-Goyette led the charge in this seven-goal game as the Griffons took down Blainville. Vanier College’s Danica Banham would pitch in as well as the visitors punched their ticket to the L1Québec final on August 3rd.
It was a much simpler affair on Sunday as CF Montreal eliminated Quebec City’s Royal Select Beauport in their semi-final meeting. Beauport held firm for the majority of the match, threatening the CFM backline on several occasions, but Liana Tarasco’s 34′ goal would be the deciding factor in this one, sending CFM to an all ‘A’ Conference final!
Header Image Photo Credit: Tom Ewasiuk / AFTN Canada
