A typical university soccer season will have its fair share of ups and downs. The 2026 season, to date, has been anything but typical for the members of the Laurentian Voyageurs women's hockey team.
With new incoming coach Emily Porteous benefitting from but a few weeks to acquaint herself with her roster at L.U., the Voyageurs surprised many with a rock-solid 4-0 win over the RMC (Royal Military College) Paladins in their season opener at home.
The L.U. ladies came back to earth with a resounding thud over the course of the next two weeks, dropping their next three encounters by a combined margin of 26-1.
And just when it appeared the season was going to go completely off the rails for Porteous and company, Laurentian found its bearing, stringing together four highly competitive outings that included win number two last weekend, a 2-1 victory over the Trent Excalibur.
"I wouldn't say that it was much of a change strategically," said fourth-year midfielder Adriana Primerano, who netted the game-winning goal versus Trent, capitalizing on a first half scramble roughly ten minutes after teammate Taylor Rombout broke the ice offensively.
"I would say it was more of a shift in mindset. We, as a team, believed that we needed to sort things out because that is not us; Ottawa (where they lost 12-0) is not us."
The turnaround did not initially yield any victories - but the signs were quite promising. A home weekend in mid-September saw the Voyageurs draw back to back 1-0 matches to the Ontario Tech Ridgebacks and the Carleton Ravens - the latter having beaten Laurentian 6-1 two weeks earlier in the nation's capital.
In the aftermath of the win over Trent, the locals travelled to Kingston and dropped a 2-0 decision to the Queen's Gaels and will now play host to Queen's this coming Sunday at noon.
"Our training has gotten a lot more intense," noted Primerano, who moved cross-country from British Columbia to attend university in Sudbury - and is also the first cousin of Canadian hockey sensation Chloe Primerano.
"We're pushing each other a lot harder. I think that's super important to get us more prepared for the games. And I think we're working a lot better together, working harder for each other."
"It was a bit of a shift from working hard to have a good game individually to working hard to have a good game as a team."
Having endured some very tough times during her years in northern Ontario, Primerano is confident the team is now set to turn the corner.
"It's definitely been hard, I would say. Three coaches in four years is not ideal at all. I wouldn't want that for anyone. Yes, we lost (on Sunday), but we were in it. It's now about leaving the program better than it was last year."
Meanwhile, the Laurentian men managed to pick up some bonus points, of sorts, on the weekend, despite losing a close 2-1 battle to the Trent Excalibur and contesting a scoreless draw with the Queen's Gaels the next day.
A 1-0 loss to Carleton at home on September 20th is now showing as a 3-0 forfeited win - though the reason behind the forfeiture is not noted. That said, the additional victory imporves the Laurentian record to 3-2-3, good for 12 points.
The total leaves the Voyageurs in fifth place, four up on both Queen's and Carleton and five better than Nipissing with four games to play: Sunday hosting Queen's (2-3-2); October 9th at U of Toronto (4-2-2); October 10th at TMU (4-1-1); October 17th - hosting TMU.
