Soccer Hawks snatch top honours
Jeff Schouela & Mike Kostoff

The Men's soccer team took their unbeaten record to Cenntenial stadium, where they would play their biggest game of the season against what coach Barry Maclean calls "The toughest team in the league", the McMaster Marauders.

The Marauders led the league in goal scoring, averaging more than 3 per game. However it looked as though the Hawks were the team to beat as they simply out hustled Mac to the ball on many occasions in the first half.

Laurier seemed to be the hungrier team and they felt like they had to prove something on this day. At halftime, WLU had built a 2-1 lead on goals by Danny Glibota and a penalty shot goal by keeper Mark Ignor.

The second half proved to be similar as Laurier kept Mac away from their net. The defence was pretty solid throughout the match, especially Andrew Sutherland, who kept Mac's top sniper out of the game. Ken Cartmill tallied the final goal for WLU and when the final whistle blew, Laurier had a 3-1 lead, and more importantly, a temporary first place lead in the OUA. Coach MacLean had lots to say about his team,

"I'm very proud of the guys today. We played a pretty sound game all over the field. We kept the McMaster snipers off the ball and that was the key. Sutherland did a fine job keeping those guys out of the game. I expect this team to finish the season in first place. There's no reason not to."

Laurier brought their 9 game unbeaten streak into a very windy and damp University stadium for their final home game of the season against the Brock University Badgers.

While the Badgers had nothing to lose in this contest, a win for the Hawks would give the team sole possesion of first place in the OUA west divison.

In what has become a familar story this season for the soccer Hawks, it was Danny Glibota that came up big, netting the first and only goal near the 15:00 minute mark of the first half to put the Hawks up 1-0.

From there, the stingiest defense in the OUA took over and kept Brock off the scoreboard. The Hawk defense dug deep and fended off the solid pressure from the Brock attackers which kept play in the Laurier end of the pitch for much of the contest.

The victory sets up a showdown in London next week as the Hawks will travel to London to battle the second place Western Mustangs (6-1-3).

This is sure to be the game of the season so far as a victory by the Hawks would guarantee them first place in the O.U.A west divison heading into the playoffs. The Hawks and Mustangs played to a 1-1 tie earlier this season. From London, the team will head to Windsor on Sunday to close out the regular season against the 3-3-3 Windsor Lancers.