The Warriors women's hockey team had one of their most successful and memorable seasons come to an end on Friday night at the CIF following a second straight overtime defeat at the hands of the Nipissing Lakers. After a thrilling 2-1 win over Brock in Game 3 of the OUA quarter-finals, Waterloo went in with a lot of confidence into the semifinal battle with the Lakers but just came out on the wrong end of two OT games.

In Game 1 on Wednesday in North Bay, Waterloo found themselves down 1-0 early but Trisha Cho (Mississauga, ON/) put a shot on net that hit the Laker defender and bounced up and over into the net to tie the game up at 1's. Nipissing added two late goals in the middle frame to go up 3-1 into the third. 

With only five minutes to play in the final period, Waterloo scored twice to even the game at 3's. First it was Jessie Fennell (Fonthill, ON/) followed by Paige Rynne (Ancaster, ON/) who tipped in a Cho point shot to send the game to overtime. In the extra period, Nipissing scored a controversial goal where Kara Mark (New Hamburg, ON/) appeared to have had the puck frozen but the play was never blown dead and the Lakers pushed it in passed the keeper to take game one, 4-3 in overtime.

On Friday night at the CIF Arena, it was again a back and forth affair all game as the two of the best from the OUA slugged it out. Nipissing found the games first goal midway through the second period before Waterloo responded on the power play with 4:47 to go in the middle frame. Carly Orth (Caledon, ON/) and Brooklyn Cole (Kitchener, ON/) worked a beautiful give and go before Orth finished it off on the far wing to even the game at 1's. Just three minutes later, Rynne once again tipped in a point shot, this one from Carley Olivier (Sudbury, ON/) to give the Warriors their first lead of the series as the black and gold went into the second intermission up 3-2.

Unfortunately the Warriors could not hold the lead for the remaining 20 minutes as the Lakers found the equalizer off the stick of Madison Laberge midway through the final frame. Some big stops by Mark down the stretch sent the game into overtime for the second straight game. Both teams exchanged quality chances in the extra period before Ashley Taciuk wired home a wrister from the slot top corner to give Nipissing the 2-0 series win.

"It hurts right now no doubt. We gave it our all and came up just short," said head coach Shaun Reagan. "But I know when our players and the coaching staff looks back on this season, we will have a lot to be proud of and we will build on this momentum going into the 2023-24 season."