Men's Soccer | 11/5/2025 6:00:00 PM
The York University Lions men's soccer team is back among the final eight teams standing in a quest for a national championship.
Despite dropping the OUA championship to the host Toronto Varsity Blues, York qualified for the national tournament for the ninth time in the last 11 seasons thanks to an exhilarating penalty-kick win over the Carleton Ravens. The Lions will occupy the host berth and the sixth seed for a second straight year, while the OUA champion Blues will own the tournament's top seed.
York's first-round opponent is the Dalhousie Tigers, making it the second consecutive year the Lions will face AUS titlists after defeating the St. FX X-Men in the quarter-finals last year as the No. 6 seed. Guided by AUS coach of the year Alan Jazic, Dalhousie comes in having gone 8-2-2 in the regular season, before extinguishing the X-Men in OT in the AUS semi-finals and then beating Cape Breton in another OT thriller, 3-2, in the final, to secure the program's first conference banner in 17 years.
The Tigers provide an intriguing opposition in that they secure offence from different sources, proving the adage that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Dalhousie's leading goal scorer was Ben Hashimoto with six, while they recorded tallies from 11 different players, with seven of them finding the back of the net on multiple occasions.
On the other side, the Lions boast six OUA all-stars, the OUA West MVP and the OUA West Rookie of the Year. York can come at you in waves, scoring 29 times, second most in the OUA behind only the Varsity Blues. While they will be without leading goal scorer Anthony Morano for the quarter-final due to a red card he received in the OUA championship, he wasn't even the MVP – Christian Zeppieri was. Plus, Marco Sciortino, the rookie of the year, as well as guys like Yigal Bruk and Luca Priolo able to step up and provide offence.
Between the pipes, we'll see a battle between a pair of conference first team all-stars in York's Michael Williams against Dalhousie's Sinclair Astridge. Despite being in the middle of the pack in many goalkeeping categories in the AUS, Astridge, a native of Victoria B.C., got the nod over St. FX's Samuel Diltz on the first team, despite Diltz leading the conference in save percentage and goals against average.
As for Williams, he went 7-2-1 in the regular season, his first at York, and allowed only nine goals. The Lions keeper stepped in early in the year and quickly became the number one keeper in front of Dante Cararro – whose semi-final win with Williams suspended qualified York for nationals. He was able to outduel David Corano of Laurier for the West's first team keeper spot, despite playing three less games than the Hawk's ball-stopper.
All that is to say – this matchup is perhaps the most intriguing of the week between a Dalhousie team looking for its first national medal since a bronze in 1997 and a Lions team looking to build upon its bronze from 2024 and improve their worthy of more than the 'host' berth they earned, trying to win gold for the first time in a decade.
The Lions and Tigers kick off the championships Thursday morning at 11:00 am from Varsity Stadium. If the Lions win, they will play the winner of the UBC-Montreal game (1:30 pm) at either 4:00 or 7:00 pm Friday night. A loss, however, sends York to the consolation side of the bracket and a matchup with the loser of that game at either 11:00 am or 1:30 pm on Friday.
York Athletics & Recreation is offering a free ticket and subway ride to and from the game for the first 50 York students to register. You can do so at yorkulions.ca/roadtrip, purchase tickets here or stream the game live on CBC Gem or the CBC Sports YouTube channel.
