LONDON, Ont. - First-year striker Katrina Giantsopolous netted her seventh goal of the regular season in Western's 5-2 loss to the York Lions in their final regular season game on Mustangs Field. 

With the loss, the Mustangs drop to 9-2-5 on the season and move into third place in the OUA West division to conclude the regular season. The Lions' win gives them a 10-4-2 record on the season as they rise into second place in the OUA West division standings and earn a first round bye through the playoffs. 

Giantsopolous' seventh goal leads the team to go along with two assists on the season. Jessica Viera also got on the scoreboard for the purple and white in the loss, scoring her first goal of the season off of a Nikki Balachorek assist. 

"Nikki's been having a really good season for us and she delivered a really nice pass to get us on the board early, but we just couldn't hold onto it, unfortunately," said Mustangs head coach Martin Painter. "But she's been one of our best players all year and it was a great finish by Jessica Viera. We're hoping we get that same kind of performance to begin the playoffs." 

"The game plan coming in was obviously to win and hold onto our second-place position in the standings, but we came up short today, so we'll be back here Wednesday," said Giantsopolous. "We had a very strong final ten minutes, but that's just not going to be enough against such a competitive York team." 

After failing to score a goal on Friday evening, the Mustangs got themselves on the board early against the Lions defence as Balachorek set up Viera perfectly for a beautiful strike to give the purple and white the early 1-0 lead. York missed on a pair of promising opportunities midway through the half until finally converting on a breakaway to tie the game at 1-1. A free kick would give York yet another golden opportunity in which they would take full advantage of, scoring a header past Western goalkeeper Maddie Dunsmore to give York the 2-1 lead heading into halftime. 

York opened the scoring early once again in the second half, striking just below the crossbar to extend their lead to 3-1. The Lions continued to pour on the scoring in the half, adding two more breakaway goals to their total to give them a dominant 5-1 lead. Giantsopolous added her goal late in the game, but it proved to be too little, too late as the Lions cruised to the surprising 5-2 victory. 

"We just need to put these past two games behind us moving into the postseason," said Giantsopolous. "They're two losses that we don't need to dwell on, so we just need to get back to the type of soccer we've been playing all year. Health has been a huge factor for us all year. We've been losing key players constantly, so hopefully we can get some of the girls back before Wednesday and regroup as a team." 

"It's absolutely been important to have these past two games against elite opponents because it gets us ready for playoff soccer," said Painter. "We had two good games that tested us and exposed us so it should definitely help us be ready come this Wednesday." 

The Mustangs will be back in action this Wednesday, October 24, where they will take on the Waterloo Warriors in the first game of the postseason on Mustangs Field. The game is scheduled to begin at 6:00 P.M. EST.