London, ON  - The Mustangs Ringette team topped off an impressive weekend of play, bringing home the championship banner and gold medals at the 2022 Ontario Ringette AA Championship this weekend.

"Watching these young athletes come together and work as a complete unit, was unbelievable." said Mustangs Head Coach Ellen McClure "We have so many rookies this year so to blend them all seemed a bit daunting at the onset, but although there are so many individually talented players, they never played individually. Everyone contributed and worked as one, which as a coach, I loved to see!"

Western finished the round robin play with a 5-0-1 record including some big wins of 7-1 & 8-1 over Laurentian and Waterloo respectively before entering into the playoff round.

"Putting that purple Western jersey on every game will never get old." said Goaltender Rachel Van Bakel "I've been to many provincials, but playing for the university is just an entirely different feeling and I loved every minute of it."

In the semi-final they beat Brock 6-1, Ainsleigh Wedow led the Mustangs in that game with 3 goals and an assist to punch their ticket to the gold medal game.

"None of us had played this many games in one weekend in a long time due to the pandemic so the fact that we could go undefeated impressed me more than ever." said Wedow

In the finals they took on Guelph, who was the lone blemish on their round robin record where they skate to a 3-3 tie with. The Mustangs had a strong 2nd half push in the game and scored 3 including the game winner off the stick of Sydney Stabler mid way through the half and held on for a 5-4 and the championship.

"Our offensive power line, stepped up every time we called on them. Sydney Dagenais, Ainsleigh Wedow and Kayden Thornton proved to be a true force, especially with a final minute, game tying goal to keep us undefeated against our biggest rival in Guelph U during the RR." said McClure.

"It felt great to win. It was an overall team effort, everyone contributed somehow in there own way making the win even more exciting to celebrate as a team!" said Wedow.

Weekend Recap
 

Type	Date	Visitor	Scr	Home	Scr
RR	Thu Mar 3	Laurentian	1	Western	7
RR	Thu Mar 3	Western	6	Brock	0
RR	Fri Mar 4	Western	5	Ottawa	3
RR	Fri Mar 4	Waterloo	1	Western	8
RR	Sat Mar 5	McMaster	0	Western	7
RR	Sat Mar 5	Western	3	Guelph	3
Semi Final	Sun Mar 6	Brock	1	Western	6
Final	Sun Mar 6	Western	5	Guelph	4