The No. 6 nationally ranked University of Toronto Varsity Blues men's soccer team opens the 2015 OUA Final Four tournament versus the host and No. 3 York Lions on Saturday, November 7 at York Stadium.
The winner of the semifinal will advance to the CIS championship, November 12-15, also hosted by the York Lions, and will face the winner of McMaster/Ryerson in the OUA final on Sunday. Should York be victorious in semi-final action, the OUA bronze medal winner will also earn a spot on the national stage next week.
All four games will be streamed live on OUA.tv.
Before York's current run of back-to-back titles, the Marauders won two in a row (2011-12) and the Varsity Blues claimed the banner in 2010. The Rams have never won the men's soccer championship but were silver medallists in 2013.
Toronto is 7-5 in post-season meetings with York, dating back to 1972. The Blues last defeated the Lions 4-1 in semi-final action in 2011.
U of T finished the season in second place in the East with an 11-3-2 record and defeated the Queen's Gaels 1-0 to earn a spot in the Final Four for the second straight year.
York finished atop the OUA West standings with a 13-1-2 record and defeated the Guelph Gryphons, 4-3 in extra time, on Sunday to advance to the Final Four.
Second-team all-star Nirun Sivananthan (Brampton, Ont.) has been putting the ball in the back of the net all year for the Blues, collecting six goals over the regular season, as well as scoring the only goal in their quarter-final win over Queen's.
Led by first-team all-star defenders Devon Bowyer (Toronto, Ont.) and Lukas MacNaughton (Brussels, Belgium), the Blues enter Saturday's contest as one of the best defensive teams in the league after only surrendering 11 goals against in 16 games during the regular season. Midfielder Nikolay Saveliev (Nagoya, Japan) also took home first-team all-star honours.
Midfielder Yousef Helmy was a major contributor for Toronto all season and recently was named East Rookie of the Year after starting in 15 of 16 games this season for the Blues.
If the Lions manage to somehow get through the Blues defence, they'll still need to find a way to solve first-team all-star goalkeeper Rab Bruce-Lockhart(Victoria, B.C). Starting in 13 games this season for the Blues, Bruce-Lockhart went 9-3-1 with a 0.62 goals against average and .830 save percentage.
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