Laurentian Voyageurs basketball teams will have to be content with simply looking back on better than average regular seasons this coming off-season after both squads were knocked out in the opening round of OUA playoffs a couple of weeks ago.
In the case of the Laurentian women, it was a much better season than usual, a 13-9 regular season mark the best the team has seen since finishing the 2007-2008 winter at 15-7.
But hosting their first playoff home game in some two decades or so ultimately was not quite enough as the York Lions jumped out to a 37-28 lead at the half and outscored L.U. in all but the third quarter, registering a 66-55 victory.
A well-balanced attack feature point production from 11 different players led by the trio of Kiara Leveridge (12), Gabriella Di Pietro (11) and Ella Okubasu (10).
Laurentian leaned heavily on their top-end one-two punch of Emilie Lafond (20) and Claudia Pellerin (14), with injury-riddled sophomore Cadence Pecore capping off her campaign on a positive note with a ten point effort.
York were beaten in quarter-final play by the Queen's Gaels (74-48), who were in turn eliminated by the Carleton Ravens (61-54), who then settled for OUA silver medals, on the wrong end of a 75-60 scoreboard opposite the TMU (Toronto Metropolitan University) Bold in the Critelli Cup Championship affair.
For the second time this year, the third quarter was the nemesis for the Laurentian Voyageurs men's basketball team during a head to head matchup with the Lakehead Thunderwolves.
Though not as bad as the 27-8 run that L.U. endured on their regular season trip to Thunder Bay in January, the fact remains that the 25-14 advantage that Lakehead enjoyed in quarter three of their playoff battle on February 18th played a huge role in blowing open what was a 25-24 contest at the half as the T-Wolves rolled to a 73-65 win.
Chris Sagl proved to be a handful for the Voyageurs' defenders, finishing with a game high 28-point performance for the winners, with Harold Santacruz and Nishaan Singh chipping in an even dozen each and Carsen Unrau contributing with ten points as well.
To Randriasalama helped keep Laurentian close thanks to a 22-point stat line, with Brice Fandio and Ismael Konate also hitting double digits with 12 and 10 points respectively.
The 2025-2026 Voyageurs matched their 11-11 record of one year ago, but again fell just short of earning home court advantage in round one of the playoffs.
In terms of individual accolades, both Emilie Lafond and Brice Fandio cracked the very challenging OUA all-star rosters, both named to the second team.
