UQAM, U de M reach final at Canadian Collegiate Flag Football Championship 2023
The second day of competition at the 2023 National Collegiate Flag Football Championship concluded with three teams having won all three pool games, while two of them maintained a perfect record and punched their ticket for the championship final. The championship clash will see a rematch of last year’s final, this time UQAM looking to exert revenge on their neighbourly enemy Université de Montréal (U de M).
U de M completed a sweep of their group phase games on the morning of Day 2 before dispatching Laval 31-12 in the quarterfinals and set their sights on a semi-final matchup with Concordia, who reached the playoffs by beating College Montmorency 26-13 earlier. Ultimately, in what was, as expected, an impressive demonstration of athleticism, the reigning champions U de M topped Concordia (40-6) to reach the championship match.
“Our biggest strength is also our greatest weakness, and that’s our mental focus,” explains U de M Emma Racine. “We need to keep our attention on our game, like we did for the past two days, and play for ourselves. We have been able to stay calm; in each game, every moment, we always had a member of the team, whether that’s on offense or defense, that was able to keep that focus and calm and make sure that the rest of the team was staying on task. That’s what got us to this point. We have one game left, and we’ll need to give it our all if we want to win the championship.”
On the other side of the table, UQAM secured their second consecutive participation in the gold medal game by besting Sherbrooke 38-14 in their semi-final Saturday afternoon. To get there, UQAM had collected three wins in pool play before defeating the University of Regina Cougars Green in the quarterfinals. Sherbrooke had reached the semi-finals by triumphing 15-12 over the University of Toronto in their quarterfinal game.
“This weekend we seemed to have trouble starting our games, we were a bit slow out of the gate, but always managed to get back our rhythm and get the wins. The game against Concordia was a tough one for us, we know they are a quality opponent and knew it would be a hard one to get past, but we had a great performance, really putting what we worked on in practice in action.,” commented Jasmine Farmer of UQAM. “We are particularly pleased that we didn’t have to face U de M in the semi-final and that we’ll get to play them for the gold medal and championship. We worked all year to rewrite that last chapter and will be ready for this game.”
The honourable mention of Day 2 goes to the teams that kept fighting to the very last play in the six games that ended with a score differential of a score or less, including Football Nova Scotia who lost their consolation game by only one point.
The Canadian Collegiate Flag Football Championship 2023, featuring women’s teams from across the country, is currently being held at the Complexe sportif Claude-Robillard in Montreal, QC, with games from the bronze and gold medals scheduled for Sunday (11:40 am and 1 pm respectively).
Visit https://footballcanada.com/event/2023-canadian-collegiate-flag-football-national-championships/ for the full schedule, results, and links to select game streams.
