Womenโs 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 seasonโs end.
โWe have a really strong focus obviously we are hosting the national championships this fall and four of the last five years weโve 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 weโre really focused on one game at a time,โ said Matt Allen, head coach of the womenโs fast pitch team.
โItโs going to be tough the way the playoff format works, the only chip on our shoulder is that weโre focussed on two goals in mind, two gold medals in October, so weโre really not looking at standings or who our playoff matchup could be, weโre focused on those two goals and weโre not paying a whole lot of attention to the standings.โ
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.
โFor us it was a really big booster beating Western — they donโt 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,โ Allen said.
โIt 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 itโs us.โ
The womenโs 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 Queenโs in Kingston on Sunday afternoon.
โRight now, weโre 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,โ Allen said.
โWeโve got them focused on their sleep patterns and what theyโre eating, but we put more of a focus on their mental game because when youโre 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 weโre focusing on getting that edge mental wise.โ
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.
โThis year is a special year for us because hosting the national championships is obviously a big deal, but itโs been 10 years since we won our first national title, which was here in Kitchener as well, so weโve got some engaged alumni theyโre coming out to games and weโre doing a celebration with them the Saturday of the championships so this team has a cool background story this year.โ
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