A recap of Varsity Club action from the past week.

CYCLING M/W
Gaels Cycling Takes Hardwood by Storm
The Queen's Varsity Cycling Club completed their first of four race weekends this weekend at Hardwood Hills near Barrie, Ontario.

The Gaels, thanks to summer recruiting, had the most cyclists of any school on the start line at this first of four race weekends at Hardwood Hills. Not only did the Gaels have strength in numbers, but also in skill. Out of the four race categories, Men's and Women's A and B, Queen's landed five podium positions with two first place finishes, one second and two thirds.

The fastest mountain biker of the day was Etienne Moreau who, along with Queen's Alumni Jon Slaughter, tore the Men's A race apart with his world class strength and technical ability to take the win. Haley Smith was the fastest woman of the day finishing two and a half minutes ahead of her nearest competitor in her hour long race. She took the Women's A victory.

Tori Giangrande was also on the podium for Women's A in 3rd place. Quin Robertson raced solidly in Men's B and placed second. Andrea Burley pedalled hard into a 3rd place in Women's B.

Two notable performances came from Cameron McPhaden and Jeff Waters who last year were "middle of the pack" finishers in Men's B and this year showed tremendous improvement in their first race of the season by finishing 4th and 7th in Men's A, respectively.

Queen's currently leads all Ontario Universities with 400 points. The next closest competitor is the University of Guelph with approximately 300 points. Last year at the end of four weekends of racing Queen's totalled 1600 points with the next nearest school at 1000 points. The Gaels Cycling Team will look to keep up their amazing performance through the three remaining race weekends.


SAILING 
Queen's sailing competed in two regattas this weekend.

Queen's sent two teams to Cornell University and placed 5th of 18 universities. Nick Schwenger and Mac Morrin capitalized on a wind shift getting 1st place in one race. Sam Thompson and Simone Larose stayed consistent both days with top eight finishes each race.

Two other Gaels teams were sent to the McGill invitational regatta. Both A and B fleet sailed fast and placed first bringing home an overall win for Queen's Sailing. B teams consisted of Gregory Clunies with Florence Hogg  and Linor Berezin with Claire Boileau.

FASTPITCH
Queen's fastpitch travelled to Brock and McMaster over the weekend and finished their four game road swing with a solid 3-1 record. Queen's swept their two games against Brock winning 2-1 and 5-4 then followed up with a split against McMaster losing 8-7 then winning 6-4.

FIELD HOCKEY
The Queens field hockey began their training camp on Aug. 27th and have since continued full speed ahead. The team used the week before frosh week to prepare for the upcoming season, practicing twice a day regardless of the blazing hot tempertures. The girls spent their first weekend at McGill where all of the individuals had their final trial in OUA level scrimmages against UPEI and McGill.

The Queen's field hockey team welcomed nine new players to their roster this year, which is a promising young crew with lots of talent. The veteran crew came back strong and season-ready and the combination of these two factors will help the team have a successful season.

A week ago the team played in an exhibition tournament in Brampton on the water based turf, hosted by York University. Their first game had a shakey start after lightning proceeded to prevent the team from having a warm-up. When they were back on the field, they toughed it out against York, losing 1-0. The second game against York's Alumni team was another 2-0 loss. However, this loss was not a reflection on the improvements shown in the growth of the team in this particular game.

Sunday morning the first game was played bright and early against Waterloo. The team brought home their first win of the season, winning 1-0 with goal scored by Margot Gunning, a first year athlete from Delta, BC. The final game of the day against Western ended in a well fought out 0-0 tie. 

This past weekend the Gaels earned a split losing on Saturday to UofT 3-0 and beating Western on Sunday 2-1.

LACROSSE M
The men's lacrosse team had a successful home weekend as they beat Bishop's 8-7 on Sunday at West Campus Field. Alex Wright led all Gaels with three goals in the game.