Saturday's clinching of the League1 ON Women's Premier title in the final game of the season doesn't mean the year is over for the Simcoe County Rovers women's squad.
Next up is the 2025 Inter-Provincial Championship at Emerald Hill Sports Park in Sherwood Park, Alta. This year marks the first time League1 Alberta hosts the competition.
The Rovers will represent League1 ON as each of the four League1 Canada provincial top-flight champions qualify. It's the first time Simcoe County will play in the tournament, of which this is the fourth edition. A club from Ontario is yet to win a semifinal match.
Especially after the fashion in which the club qualified for this week's tournament, a dominant season has the Rovers confident ahead of the trip to Alberta.
"We are mentality monsters," captain Adriane Devlin said post-match Saturday. "Having the confidence to go to Alberta, and know that we can play, and know that we have done so in the past, I don't think that we should change a thing."
Simcoe County has not lost a match in regular time since a 2-1 defeat on the road to North Toronto April 26.
The Rovers' only other loss was on penalties to North Toronto July 3 in a L1 Women's Cup semifinal. North Toronto went on to win the tournament.
"We're very humble with who we are, but I think it would also be amazing [to win] because nobody really expected us to be in this spot," defender Bryanna Caldwell said in a recent interview with Barrie360.
"We just got to keep our energies high, keep the intensity up, and know that we're fighting for it with each other and for each other." defender Abby Wroe said post-match Saturday.
Entering the season, the team was filled with new additions. They included Caldwell, Stefanie Young, and returns of forward Soumaya Bouak and head coach Zack Wilson.
However, the team's most outstanding player has been second-year striker Ally Rowe. She claimed the League1 ON golden boot with a 24-goal season, the best among all players in League1 Canada.
"It would be great to show people you don't have to be a [NCAA] DI player," Caldwell added. "You can be homegrown in Canada, be from Barrie and be on this team, and you can still be a winning player."
FORMAT
Simcoe County begins the tournament against League1 BC champions Altitude F.C. The club finished atop the league table with a 14-1-1 record and 43 points. Defending Inter-Provincial champion Vancouver Rise Academy finished six points back.
Friday's matches will be single-elimination knockout semifinals, with the loser headed to a third-place match Sunday. The semifinal winners will meet in the Inter-Provincial Championship final.
The other semifinal features League1 QC playoff champion C.S. Mont-Royal Outremont femmes and League1 AB champion Calgary Blizzard S.C. women.
Fans may use the L1 Cup as the best idea of how the Rovers might perform in the Inter-Provincial Championship.
Three consecutive clean sheets through the round of 16, quarterfinal, and semifinal. Simcoe County outscored its opponents by a margin of 4-0 in those knockout matches.
"You've got to give the players the autonomy to be themselves or you're not going to be the best coach, because then they're not the best players," head coach Zack Wilson said in a recent interview with Barrie360. "We have some really good players and you've got to let your best players be the best players or we're not going to be in these situations that we're in."
"Winning a league is harder than winning a one-game knockout."
WHAT'S AT STAKE
CONCACAF has not yet laid out its qualification criteria for the 2026-27 CONCACAF W Champions Cup.
The previous two Inter-Provincial champions have represented Canada in the 2024-25 and upcoming 2025-26 editions of the continental club championship.
However, Canada's top flight of professional women's soccer, the Northern Super League (NSL) is in its inaugural season. It hasn't been determined yet by CONCACAF whether the league's champion will qualify for the W Champions Cup.
WHERE TO WATCH
Each match of the tournament will air live on OneSoccer. Sunday's matches on the network's secondary channel due to conflict with its Canadian Premier League (CPL) coverage.
