LONDON, Ont. – The Western Mustangs wrapped up their regular season schedule on Friday night, losing a hard-fought matchup against the York Lions by a 33-20 score at Alumni Field.
 
"I felt like we had a lot of possession both halves, but we turned the ball over at key moments which stopped our momentum," said Mustangs head coach John Weller. "When we stuck and played the system that we had discussed we had good success and managed to score tries, but too many times we got away from that, we kind of ran individually and turned the ball over."
 
With the loss the Mustangs finish the regular season with an 0-4 record, while York moves to 1-3 on the year. Western will now await the results of tomorrow's games in the Russell Division to see who they'll meet next week in the playoffs.
 
Veterans Nikki Case and Veronica Harrigan led the Mustangs offence on Friday, scoring two tries apiece in the loss. Tobi Onotomo topped the scoresheet for the Lions with two tries, followed by Catherine Belanger who scored six points off three converts.
 
Case didn't wait long to open the scoring for the home side, as she earned her first try of the evening on a long run to put the Mustangs up 5-0 only two minutes into the contest. The Lions responded quickly with a try of their own, with Megan Pakulis scoring in the 10th minute, and a convert from Belanger put York up by two.
 
York controlled the play for much of the first half, with tries coming from Sasha Seymour and Onotomo in the 17th and 26th minutes respectively.
 
Harrigan fired back for the Mustangs late in the opening half, breaking through the York line to cut the Lions lead to 21-10 at the half.
 
The second half started out similarly to the first, however this time it was the Lions who were first on the board as Onotomo broke away on a long run only two minutes into the half. Western responded only three minutes later on another try from Harrigan.
 
York then answered back with a run from Tia Anderson-Hudson to put the Lions up 33-15 in the 52nd minute.
 
The back-and-forth play continued with good chances for both sides, with Case recording the final points of the night on a try in the 76th minute to make it a 33-20 final in favour of the Lions.
 
With the regular season now in the books, the Mustangs will turn their attention to the playoffs, and with the OUA's new format Western will be starting off against a team they've yet to play this season.
 
"We have a full playoff but with the teams from Russell Division so we will take a look at some film from them and see where we go," said Weller. "We are back to work on Monday with video and then a couple training sessions with one more game and hopefully more."
 
Check back to westernmustangs.ca next week for more on the Mustangs next game when the full OUA playoff schedule is announced.