Staff
Between back-to-back NorWOSSA titles and a slew of teams opting to stay home, the Muskie girls’ hockey team has been elevated among the ranks of those fighting for a provincial title.
Playing in Pool ‘B,’ Fort High was handed the No. 3 seed in the 16-team field that will vie for the OFSAA ‘AA’ championship in Kenora, which began this morning.
The Muskies took on the 14th-ranked McKinnon Park Blue Devils (Caledonia) this morning, with the outcome unavailable as of press time.
Fort High then will face eighth-ranked St. Mark High School (Ottawa) at 12:45 p.m. tomorrow before closing out pool play against the ninth-seeded Southwood Sabres (Cambridge) at 7:30 p.m.
A full quarter of the tournament field will hail from NorWOSSA, with all four playoff teams from the league making it in after eight different conferences declined their OFSAA invitations.
The Muskies will be joined by the Dryden Eagles (No. 7), who fell to Fort High in the NorWOSSA final for the second-straight year, the host St. Thomas Aquinas Saints (No. 15), and the Kenora Broncos (No. 16).
The St. Michael’s Warriors (Stratford) own the No. 1 seed, followed by the Char-Lan Crusaders (Williamstown) at No. 2.
The top two teams in each pool will advance to the championship bracket quarter-finals while the bottom two will play in the consolation side, all of which get underway Wednesday.
Fort High was ranked No. 8 last year and made it to the championship quarter-finals in the program’s first-ever OFSAA appearance before being eliminated in a 6-1 loss to the top-seeded St. Theresa Titans (Belleville).
Both St. Theresa and the defending champion Ecole secondaire catholique Louis-Riel Les Rebelles did not make the trip to Kenora.
In other action today, the No. 12-seeded Muskie senior girls’ volleyball team faced the fifth-ranked General Amherst Bulldogs (Amherstburg) this morning at the OFSAA ‘A/AA’ championship in Dryden (the match was incomplete as of press time).
Fort High, playing in Pool ‘C,’ then took the second-seeded College catholique Samuel-Genest Lasers (Ottawa) at 3 p.m.
The Muskies will wrap up pool play tomorrow at noon against the 15th-seeded Southwood Sabres.
The top two teams in each pool advance to the championship bracket, with the bottom two dropping to the consolation side.
All pool matches are best-of-three affairs before jumping to best-of-five contests when the playoffs begin later tomorrow.
The bronze-medal match is set for Wednesday at 3 p.m., with the gold-medal match at 5 p.m.
And in OFSAA ‘A/AA’ boys’ hockey action, the fourth-seeded Muskies will open play tomorrow at 9 a.m. (CDT) against the host Fellowes Falcons (Pembroke).
The eight-time defending NorWOSSA champs are in Pool ‘D’ at the 16-team tourney.
The top two teams in each pool advance to the playoff round, which begins Thursday.
