Men's Soccer look to end the drought, Cross Country teams looking for banner finish!

The seasons are overlapping this weekend as the fall season begins to wind down and the winter sports begin to pick up as the Sea~Hawks have a full slate of events scheduled this weekend. The excitement kicks off with the Men’s Volleyball team travelling to the University of Montreal for their season opening Interlock tournament with schools from the RSEQ. Meanwhile the Women travel to Halifax for the AUS opening Tournament being co-hosted by SMU and DAL. On Saturday the excitement kicks into high gear as the Men’s and Women’s Cross Country teams travel to Fredericton, NB for the AUS Championships in what will be a devil of a time. Meanwhile, at home on the Soccer pitch the Men will be fighting the ghosts of seasons past as their playoff lives are on the line. They are playing to become the first men’s team in any team sport to qualify for the AUS Playoffs in over five years. For the women pride is on the line as they can skip ahead to the sixth seed overall but fall victim to host rule, they same rule they were the benefactors of in 2009. The Sea~Hawks Swim team crosses the border into New Hampshire for their first dip in the pool at the Goffstown meet. Finally, on Sunday the Wrestling team hits the mat for the very first time this year at the Concordia open in Montreal, in what should be an exciting start to the season for the tenacious Sea~Hawks.

     

Men’s Soccer

 

The Universite de Moncton Aigles Bleu (4-5-2) fly into St.John’s this weekend fighting for their playoff lives while looking to play the role of heart breakers for the hometown Sea~Hawks (3-5-3). Tensions should be running high but the team that plays the most disciplined just might book their ticket to the big dance next weekend in Cape Breton.

     

In this battle of predatory birds the Sea~Hawks need to finish the weekend with at least four points to qualify. Upfront the hot feet have to stay hot as forwards Jake Warren; Jay Wijngaarden, Jay Babstock and perennial scoring leader Steven Delong all need to outperform the Moncton team that sits two points ahead of them in the race for Sixth.

     

Fans should expect an exciting set of games between the two teams and should take note that with two wins the home town boys can actually leap frog Saint Mary’s for fifth overall with some help. Along with the playoff excitement Memorial athletics will be honouring the careers of three fifth year players, Jay Babstock, Zach Hynes and Captain Ryan Yetman all of whom look to take one last run at an AUS Banner in 2011. The exciting finale to the 2011 season starts at 3:15pm on Saturday with the final game on Sunday at 1:15pm.

         

Women’s Soccer

Heading into Senior day there is a lot more than pride on the line for the Sea~Hawks women’s soccer program. The opportunity to climb to sixth place exists as well as the chance to send a message to the rest of the AUS that the rebuilding is coming along fine and that next season the goal will be the playoffs.

     

The defence first Sea~Hawks will bear witness to the final step in the changing of the rear guard as Co-Captain Laura Tilley will play in her final game along with Lauren Murphy and forward Maxine Morris. Tilley despite her size plays one of the most intense and physical styles of play of all defenders in the AUS. Lauren Murphy in her fifth year as seen a dramatic increase of minutes in 2011 and is the perfect example of what a dedicated training program can do for her younger teammates, as she’s rarely left the field this season. As for Morris, the streaky goal scorer has shown that she is more than an offensive threat often stepping up for her coach to help steady the play through the midfield and forward position.

       

The Women play at 1:00pm on Saturday and 11:00am on Sunday.

       

Cross Country

The Women’s team, head into the championship as the defending AUS Bronze medallists. Caroline McIlroy leads the women heading into the 5km championship and is a definitive favourite to take the overall title and qualify for the CIS Championships at Laval on November 12.Veteran Laura Lawes has been coming on hard during training sessions and is hoping to peak in time for the starting gun on Saturday. Rookie Courtney Munn is hopeful that some home cooking will give her a boost as she hopes to crack the top 15. Rounding out the women competing this weekend will be veteran Victoria Ralph, Melanie Amminson, Melissa Campbell and Lindsay Oldham.

       

The Men’s AUS Championship will be very interesting as the race distance jumps to 10km, a distance the young team has yet to compete at this season. Rookie standout Jordan Fewer will get his first taste of Conference championship running along with fellow rookies Graham MacDonald, Rudy Reidlsperger, and Nick Snow. The team has been running well and should be able to compete for a top two team finish. The roster is rounded out with veteran runner Mark Hayward and Kassu Gebresellasie. Kassu will be making his Sea~Hawks debut after a year of setbacks that have kept him from racing with the Sea~Hawks. Coach Art Meaney is excited at the potential of this team and is hopeful the guys can qualify for the CIS championships in two weeks time. The race will be run in Fredericton, NB.

       

Men’s Volleyball

AUS – RSEQ Interlock 1 – University de Montreal

     

Fri. Oct 28, 9:30pm vs. Montreal; Sat Oct. 29 12:30pm vs. Laval, 7:30pm vs. Sherbrooke

     

The Memorial Men’s Volleyball team will open up their AUS season, with an AUS RSEQ Interlock Tournament in Montreal this weekend. The Sea-Hawks will face some tough competition against Laval, Sherbrooke and Universite de Montreal. Laval currently is ranked 6th in the country and will be a difficult match-up for the Sea-Hawks, while Sherbrooke and Montreal should offer a chance to see some early success. The Sea-Hawks are much deeper in talent this year and their results at RMC show that they can compete through 5 set matches. The early exhibition play allowed Coach Luke Harris to look at this line up and to observe the development of the team so far this season. The Interlock tournament also gives the Sea-Hawks the opportunity to see their AUS counterparts Dalhousie & UNB in action against the three Quebec teams, which could help the team in preparing for these head to head match-ups later in the season.

       

Women’s Volleyball

AUS Tournament- Dalhousie & Saint Mary’s

     

Fri Oct 28, 8:30pm vs.DAL; Sat Oct, 29 11:30am vs.UNB, 6:30pm vs. CBU

     

The Memorial Women’s Volleyball team will have a chance to put their roster up against the AUS teams this weekend, as the AUS league tournament, which does count towards league standing gets underway in Halifax. Both Dalhousie and Saint Mary’s will co-host the event and the Sea-Hawks will compete against Dalhousie, UNB & Cape Breton. The Sea-Hawks have shown promise during early exhibition play and the mix of veterans and rookies has given Coach Bill Thistle various options in the line-up. A couple of injuries may prohibit the Sea-Hawks from being at full strength, however the goal is to earn as many points as possible this weekend. Thistle has been very happy with his team’s performance to date and commencing the AUS season at an event where all teams will be competing will provide an advantage of scouting other teams in preparation for matches later in the season.

Swimming

The Swim team heads into unchartered waters this weekend as they cross the border to compete at Manchester Tiger Sharks Team Invitational Meet in Goffstown, New Hampshire. For this meet Coach Brad Hutton has elected to travel a smaller team to prepare them for the AUS invitational at Dalhousie in November

     

Competing for the women will be:

   



Leah Tomblin 100fly, 100back, 50free, 200back, 200im
Kelsie Rogers 100fly, 50free, 100free, 200back
Dayna Hogan 200free, 50free, 100free, 200im

     

For Tomblin this is an opportunity to qualify for CIS Championships in the 100m Backstroke and 200m and to begin towards a strong championship meet. Rogers and Hogan are racing for CIS Championships standards in the sprint freestyle events. Rogers has previously qualified and Dayna Hogan is looking to add the third name to that national travel list.

   


The Three men making the trip are:

     

Ryan Allen 100fly, 50free, 100brst, 200im
David Forbes 100fly, 50free, 100free, 200im
Richard Hibbs 200free, 50free, 100brst, 200im

       

David Forbes will be racing in three of his strongest events - the 100m butterfly, 50m freestyle and 100m freestyle, he has qualified in all three events for CIS Championships in meters but never in yards. Hibbs and Allen are looking to close in on CIS Standards in the 100m breaststroke and 200m individual medley as a great start to the season could lead to a season full of personal bests for the tandem. The Sea~Hawks full travel team will get their first meet of the AUS season on November 19 and 20th at the Dalhousie invitational.



 

Wrestling

The Sea~Hawks Wrestling team travels to Montreal this Sunday to wrestle in the Concordia Open. The Women’s team will be led by team captain Breanne Coady as her and fellow CIS qualifiers Myfanwy Price and Shannon Higdon lead the team of five women including rookie wrestlers Carla Chaytor and Noelle Laite into the annual fall event. The Concordia event is a great opportunity to measure where the Sea~Hawks stand heading into the longer winter training months The Women ‘s team qualified 6 wrestlers for CIS last year and it is hoped that they can repeat that feat and add to that total in 2011-2012.

       

Coach Kerri-Ann Evely is hopeful the Men will be able to add to the success the women experienced last year. Veteran Wrestlers Ryan Nichols and Matthew Patey lead a tenacious group of athletes into Concordia in what will be the start of a banner year for the men’s team. The men will travel 8 wrestlers this weekend including Rory Gillis, Robert Jewer, Daniel Mackenzie, Dennis Sutton, David Young and Kamloops, BC native Dustin Silvey. The MUN wrestling program has evolved this season that evolution has a been a result of the young men and women bringing an intensity and focus that has created a spirit of fierce competition to every training session as the team has been working to help one another improve and achieve at the highest level. The Group travelling this weekend is a part of an impressive group that is forcing Coach Evely into some tough decisions come travel time.

     

Follow along all weekend long at www.goseashawks.ca