Simcoe County Rovers' women's side is on the verge of history.
Saturday's 4-0 win on the road against North Mississauga has given the club control of its own destiny with two matches left in the League1 ON Women's Premier season.
The Rovers are second place on the table, tied with North Toronto at 39 points. NDC Ontario lead the league with 41 points, but that club and North Toronto each have one match remaining.
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The team entered the season with confidence in its potential for success. However, one match stands out as a turning point.
"When we played North Toronto at home," Rovers defender Bryanna Caldwell explained in an interview with Barrie360. "We knew North Toronto would be a top team in the league and being able to get a tie against them, it really opened my eyes and I knew all along that we were going to be a top team in the league."
"There's no playoffs, you have to be really consistent over a long period of time, head coach Zack Wilson said.
Two of the team's first three games of the season were against North Toronto and NDC Ontario respectively. A loss and a win respectively.
Simcoe County is 12-1-3, with the only loss the second match of the League1 ON season North Toronto. The club lost one other time, also to the Nitros, on penalities in the L1 Women's Cup semifinals.
Wilson, recently hired as head coach at Brock (OUA), firmly believes U Sports players are underrated—a perception that fuels their underdog mentality.
"When we beat NDC, we started to see that this group's a little bit special," he said. "Our team is majority U Sports players, and I don't feel they get their respect around the soccer community... there's a little bit of a misconception there that [NCAA] DI players are stronger than U Sports players, and I think it's a lot closer than people think."
"We've had like teams say to us 'our whole bench could beat your whole starting lineup,'" Caldwell says.
Caldwell is one of the U Sports players Wilson alludes to. However, another very important to the club all season has been Cape Breton's Ally Rowe.
"She is obviously one of the most talented players I've played with ever, Caldwell states. "She just always finds a way to get by the people she's against, and she always finds a way to put it in the net."
Rowe is second in League1 in goals with 18, two behind Guelph United's Olivia Brown.
Wilson compares his team to NDC and North Toronto. Both are stacked with players who have U20 women’s national team or NCAA Division I experience. Only three Rovers players have played Division I soccer.
"Every team in the league has talent, but the thing that sets us apart from everybody else is 100 per cent our work ethic," Caldwell added. "You can look at North Toronto, you can look at NDC, look at whoever... we always find a way to push through and we always find a way to win. If we were just a team with talent, I don't think that would happen."
Work ethic seems to be the team's identity, but Caldwell continues to say that the team's chemistry plays a big part in its success.
"We came in as a very, very new group," she says. "We've learned about each other as people, as players. I think on and off the field, that's what's made us really cohesive."
"At the start of the season, we were just a bunch of like separate players who had a bunch of different ideas. Now, you watch us play and I think we're all on the same page."
The team is in a great place, with control of its own fate and two matches to go. However, while the nerves are setting in, the team doesn't want to change the identity its built throughout the season.
"Not a lot of people that are in the soccer community probably thought that we would be in this point where we got to control our fate," Wilson said. "Let's swing for this thing and don't be afraid and don't change who we are. Don't change how we act, don't change how we approach things. And if we do that, we're going to have a really good chance to win both games.
"It is kind of hard to not get too ahead of ourselves, especially with two games left. Caldwell said. "It does, at this point, feel very in in reach... we're confident but like not overconfident."
Both Wilson and Caldwell stress that anything can happen on any given day in League1, and that it takes a full team effort to accomplish the ultimate goal.
A League1 ON title for the Rovers women would be the first in the club's history.
The Rovers' men's side won its first League1 ON title in 2023, qualifying the team for the Canadian Championship. Simcoe County lost its preliminary round match 5-0 to Toronto FC.
"Winning a league is harder than winning a playoff with one-game knockout, Wilson says. "This puts a different statement on it, so I'd love to see [a title] for them.
WHAT'S AT STAKE?
Claiming the League1 ON Women's Premier title will qualify the club for the Women's Interprovincial Championship, played this year in Sherwood Park, Alta. A knockout tournament played between the League1 champions of British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario, and Québec.
NDC Ontario was 2024's League1 ON champion, but lost to League1 QC's C.S. Mont-Royal Outremont 1-0 in the semifinals.
Saturday's draw for the tournament will have the League1 ON champion face Altitude, the League1 B.C. champion in a single-match knockout semifinal. Meanwhile the champions from League1 QC and League1 AB will play in the other semifinal.
DRAW CONFIRMED ✅
— OneSoccer (@onesoccer) July 26, 2025
Here are the matchups for the @League1Canada 2025 Women’s Inter-Provincial Championship 👀 pic.twitter.com/6WYZtoHB02
2024 was was the first year of the CONCACAF W Champions Cup, for which the champion of the Interprovincial Championship qualifies. This year's champion will qualify for the 2026-27 tournament.
The 2024-25 edition featured Canadian side Whitecaps FC Girls Elite, followed by Vancouver Rise Academy for the upcoming 2025-26 tournament.
Additionally, the winner of the CONCACAF W Champions Cup will earn a spot in the inaugural FIFA Women’s Champions Cup and the FIFA Women’s Club World Cup, scheduled for 2027 and 2028, respectively. Gotham F.C. of the NWSL in the United States were the inaugural continental champions.
COMING UP
The Rovers women have their penultimate match on the road Wednesday against Waterloo United. Simcoe County beat Waterloo 4-2 at home earlier this season.
North Toronto finishes its season Friday at home against Alliance United, two days after the teams face off for the L1 Women's Cup.
Then, Simcoe County finishes the season at home Saturday against Vaughan Azzurri. After that match finishes, NDC Ontario plays its final match at home against London.
CLINCHING SCENARIOS
Simcoe County needs to win Wednesday to keep the club in the driver's seat Saturday. It would put them ahead of NDC Ontario by one point ahead of the final matchday.
NDC would need to win both of their final two games, and have Simcoe County drop points at least once.
North Toronto needs to win their final game, and hope for Simcoe to collect no more than three points, and NDC four.
