Oshawa’s sixth-ranked Ontario Tech men’s soccer squad in playoff mode

After a heart-breaking end to a season with great expectations last year when the 11-1 Ontario Tech men’s soccer team lost a quarter-final match on penalties, the squad will get a do-over after this weekend’s final regular season game.

The Ridgebacks (7-1-3) are ranked sixth in the nation and second in Ontario and hope to wipe away the disappointment from 2022 when the post-season gets underway next week.

Not that they’re looking past Sunday’s game against Carleton, who are undefeated at 9-0-1 and hold the fourth seed in the national rankings, especially after Toronto Metropolitan knocked the Ridgebacks from the ranks of the unbeaten with a 2-0 win October 7.

That game was marked by the return of former Ontario Tech superstar Chris Campoli, who enrolled at TMU to earn his Masters in Business after four years in Oshawa where he was a 3x U Sports first team all-star, 2x OUA scoring leader, 2x Ontario Tech Athlete of the Year and the reigning U Sports Player of the Year, the first athlete with this honour in school history.

This year’s Ridgeback team had their own scoring stars led by the one-two punch of Omar Marzouk (11 goals) and Brett Springer (10), who trailed only Sebastian Dzikowski of UBC (14) – in national goal scoring.

Campoli scored the winner in the October 7 match for the Toronto school, which is ranked eighth in Canada.

UBC, Montreal and Cape Breton hold down the top three spots in the rankings.

Ontario Tech’s women’s team (5-5-1) will take on Carleton (5-2-3) in the other game at Vaso’s Field Saturday.

Ontario Tech will host the 2024 U Sports National Soccer Championships, with the eight-team event to be held over four days next November. It will be the Oshawa school’s first ever U Sports national championship event.