The York University Lions field hockey team will be at the University of Toronto this weekend to compete against the best teams in the conference for provincial supremacy at the OUA Final Four Championships.
 
The Lions are seeded third for the four-team tournament, their best result since 2007. They will face the host Varsity Blues in the second semifinal on Friday afternoon (Oct. 30) beginning at 2pm at the Back Campus Fields.
 
The Lions will be looking to improve upon last year's fourth-place finish, which came after they upset the Waterloo Warriors in the quarter-finals to advance to the medal round. They advanced to the championships for the second year in a row thanks to a much improved regular season in which they finished with 17 points thanks to a 5-5-2 record. The mark was a two-win improvement over last season, and the Lions also scored three more goals this year than they did last year.
 
They were led in the scoring by second-year forward Michelle Per (Port Moody, B.C.), who finished tied for 12^th in the OUA with five goals on the season. The Lions will also look to third-year forward Ravneet Kalkat (Mississauga, Ont.) for offence after she set a new career high with three goals.
 
The squad will be in tough against the defending OUA champion Blues, who finished the regular season with an 11-1 record, tied with the first-place Guelph Gryphons, and ended up second in the standings because of Guelph's better mark in their head-to-head contests. Toronto was, by far, the highest scoring team in the OUA with 75 goals in just 12 games, and they also allowed only 18, the second lowest mark behind Guelph.
 
The Varsity Blues' potent offensive attack featured seven players with at least six goals on the year, led by Tegan Stairs with 13 in just 10 games played. Ally Evanyshyn and Amanda Woodcroft were also impressive with 11 goals apiece in the regular season.
 
The Blues had the Lions' number in the regular season, winning both matches by the same 5-0 scores.
 
The top-seeded Gryphons will face the fourth-seeded Warriors in Friday's first semifinal at 12pm. The winners of both matches will battle for the OUA banner on Saturday at 2pm, while the bronze-medal match will be played at noon. Both semifinal winners will also advance to the CIS championships taking place Nov. 5-8 at the University of Victoria.
 
Advance tickets are on sale here. All four games will be streamed live on OUA.tv.