KINGSTON, Ont. (November 4, 2019) - The Gaels water polo played host at the Queen's Invitational, squash hosted their first Jester crossover, wrestling competed at the McMaster Invitational and men's lacrosse closed out their 2019 season.
Water Polo
Queen's water polo played host to the Queen's Invitational at the ARC pool this past Saturday and Sunday. The women went 3-1 with the only loss being an 11-3 opening game against the Varsity Blues. After the opening match, Queen's earned a string of three victories over McMaster 11-5, Carleton 10-3 and Ottawa 5-4. Those results solidified the team's number two league ranking for the NCWP (National Collegiate Water Polo) Championships on November 15-17 at Carleton.
Maddy Bisaillon led the team in scoring with 10 goals, she was followed by Sydney Hutchinson with seven, Caitlin Neapole and Mia Stankovic each scored three goals and Saskia Simunovic contributed two. Goalie Rachael Haunton was outstanding in the final game against Ottawa making crucial saves on multiple power plays.
The men finished 2-2 on the weekend. After an opening 12-1 loss to defending champions the Varsity Blues, the Gaels earned victories over Ottawa (12-5) and McGill 13-2 before a tough 9-4loss to Carleton. Connor Crowe led the Gaels with 12 goals, rookie Joe Krushelnick added seven and captain Alex LeBlanc scored four.
Squash
Queen's hosted the first Jesters crossover tournament of the season this past weekend. A total of twelve men's and twelve women's teams represented universities from across Ontario and McGill. The Jesters league is made up of three divisions with four teams each. The Queen's men played two teams from each of the other two divisions beating York and Laurier 7-0 and losing to Toronto 3-4 and Waterloo 1-6. The encounter with Toronto was an extremely close affair and took three hours to complete late into Saturday evening. Chris Howard had a pivotal match in that battle, after losing his first two games he came back to win the third and fourth, pushing the match to a fifth and deciding game. Chris was on the verge of winning with a 10-8 lead but unfortunately saw that slip away to a disappointing 12-10 loss. The standout for Queen's was rookie Stephen Messier who won all of his matches playing at the #5 position against York and Laurier and the #7 position against Toronto and Waterloo. His win was the sole victory against Waterloo who came out on top of the twelve team competition. Queen's finished fourth behind Waterloo, Guelph and Western.
Wrestling
The Queen's wrestling team competed in McMaster Open this past weekend. Gaels came home with two bronze medals by Karly Kundrinko and Joshua Aragone. Karly went 5-1 with high-flying throws ending in many pinfalls. Claire Vandesande made her wrestling debut on the university circuit ending the day with a 2-2 record. Claire had an amazing comeback in the second round, coming back from a tough 6-0 deficit to earn an important victory.
First year Luca Brancatelli also made his debut this weekend for Queens going 1-2 and received a tech fall 16-5 to defeat an Algoma wrestler. Aidan MacCready showed great ferocity and perseverance by coming out with a tech fall, a big win for Queens and the first-year wrestler. The Gaels will next compete at the York Invitational in three weeks.
Men's Lacrosse
The Queen's Gaels lacrosse season ended with a 6-4 loss to the Trent Excalibur.
