The Carleton Ravens women’s soccer team returned home from the Ontario University Athletics (OUA) Final Four empty-handed, after losing both of their games in heartbreaking penalty kick defeats.
“The girls played really well,” Ravens head coach Alex McNutt said. “I was extremely proud of the way they performed, and some of the football we played this weekend was our best of the season, even though we got unlucky and lost both games.”
In their semi-final game Nov. 1 against the Wilfrid Laurier University Golden Hawks, a spot in the Canadian Interuniversity Sport women’s soccer championship hung in the balance for the winning team.
The Ravens outshot the Hawks by a 14-8 margin, but after no goals in regulation and extra time, a penalty shootout would ultimately decide the game and the berth to nationals.
The Golden Hawks outscored Carleton 5-4 in the shootout, and crushed the Ravens’ dreams of the first national championship appearance in program history.
McNutt said the loss was even more devastating because for a moment the Ravens players on the field thought they had won and qualified for nationals.
According to McNutt, the team started embracing and celebrating after goalkeeper Elizabeth MacDougall made a save in the shootout, but they were quickly informed they still had to score on their next penalty kick in order to win.
The team’s next shooter, who had a chance to win the game and clinch a berth at nationals with a goal, was turned aside and the Carleton celebration proved to be premature. The Ravens lost in the next round of kicks, and had their moment of being national championship-bound snatched away.
Ravens captain Briana De Souza said it will take a long time for her to forget the loss.
“It was the best moment of my life, and like two seconds after, I realized we weren’t going and when we lost, it was so heartbreaking,” she said.
Carleton had an opportunity for redemption in the OUA bronze medal game Nov. 3 against the Queen’s University Golden Gaels, and the opportunity to bring home the program’s first ever medal from the OUA Final Four. But just like the crushing loss two days earlier, the Ravens and Gaels were scoreless after regulation and extra time, and Carleton suffered another shattering loss in the penalty shootout.
McNutt said the losses were even more difficult due to the fact he thought they outplayed their opponents in both games, and deserved a better fate than a winless weekend.
“We felt we were the better team on both days, but we weren’t able to get that one goal to win despite all our chances,” he said. “Once it goes to penalties, anything can happen, and our girls came so close but came up just a little bit short.”
He said he thought his team might have played the best of all four teams there, but horrible luck at crucial times in games contributed to their last-place finish.
The Golden Hawks team that defeated Carleton in penalties in the semi-final game wound up winning the entire tournament, as in the OUA final they beat the Western University Mustangs in penalties.
In fact, all four games in the tournament were decided by a 1-0 score in penalty kicks, meaning no team scored a goal in regulation all weekend.
McNutt said there is a sense of belief now among the players that they can compete with the best teams in Ontario, which he said will help the team be motivated for next season.
The team advanced to the OUA Final Four by knocking off the University of Toronto Varsity Blues Oct. 27 in extra time, after falling to the Blues in their last game of the regular season.
The loss knocked the Ravens out of second place in the division and forced them to play a first round playoff game in which they won against the Nipissing University Lakers 3-2.
Then they had to travel to Toronto where they had a rematch against the Blues with the winner advancing to the OUA Final Four.
The game was scoreless after regulation time, but this one did not go all the way to penalty kicks as Ravens second-year forward Abby Nicastro scored in the second half of extra time to lead the Ravens to the 1-0 win and their first OUA Final Four appearance.
Even though the season did not end the way they wanted, McNutt said the firsts his team achieved this year, in their first OUA Final Four appearance and their first ever win over the University of Ottawa Gee-Gees, will help the team continue making historic firsts going forward.
“We’ve gotten better every year, and after a disappointing end to a tremendous year, we will definitely learn from it and try to do even better next year and beyond,” he said.
