Laurier women’s fastpitch team remains undefeated with 7-0 lead

Women’s fast pitch at Laurier has gone on a seven-game win streak, sitting first in their division as they stay undefeated during the first two weekends of their season, aiming towards a first place finish at the season’s end.

“We have a really strong focus obviously we are hosting the national championships this fall and four of the last five years we’ve come second to Western and this is a pretty veteran team, so we have a lot of girls in their last year who want to make that jump and beat Western in the finals. For us we’re really focused on one game at a time,” said Matt Allen, head coach of the women’s fast pitch team.

“It’s going to be tough the way the playoff format works, the only chip on our shoulder is that we’re focussed on two goals in mind, two gold medals in October, so we’re really not looking at standings or who our playoff matchup could be, we’re focused on those two goals and we’re not paying a whole lot of attention to the standings.”

Starting the season with two wins each over Ryerson and Toronto, the purple and gold continued their win streak with two wins over Windsor as well as one win over rival team Western, who has taken the gold medal from the Golden Hawks the last two years.

“For us it was a really big booster beating Western — they don’t lose a whole lot of games, so for us it was a big mental block to get over on Friday. Coming out with a win gets it in their minds that the team is not invincible and we can beat them when we play our game,” Allen said.

“It proved to ourselves and our athletes who have lost to Western over the last four years that the Western team is human–and if anybody can beat them it’s us.”

The women’s team will stay at home Friday night to battle the Waterloo Warriors for two games before travelling to Guelph for a double header Saturday morning and finishing off their weekend with two final games against Queen’s in Kingston on Sunday afternoon.

“Right now, we’re really focused on some stuff off the field mental game. The girls are in the gym three to four times a week. We have six games this weekend, which is a lot, so our focus is to stay healthy,” Allen said.

“We’ve got them focused on their sleep patterns and what they’re eating, but we put more of a focus on their mental game because when you’re hosting the national championships and when you have the top eight teams in the country in one spot there will be a lot of tight games — so we’re focusing on getting that edge mental wise.”

The national championships are being hosted at Budd Park on Oct. 11-13 and the Golden Hawks will be looking to bring a championship back to Laurier on home soil.

“This year is a special year for us because hosting the national championships is obviously a big deal, but it’s been 10 years since we won our first national title, which was here in Kitchener as well, so we’ve got some engaged alumni they’re coming out to games and we’re doing a celebration with them the Saturday of the championships so this team has a cool background story this year.”