The Golden Hawks women's softball team headed east to Napanee to take part in the Ontario University Softball Championships on October 19 and October 20. After finishing the regular season with a 16-4 record, the Golden Hawks were the top seed in the Western Conference. The playoff format was an 8 team double-knockout to determine the 2024 league champions.

The first game of the championships was against the Ottawa GeeGees, the 2023 OUS bronze medalists, who had just hosted and competed in the Canadian Collegiate Softball Championships.

Ottawa got on the board first, capitalizing on a pair of Laurier errors to score single runs in the 1st and 2nd inning off starter Lauren Artt. A Maddy Halstead single and Artt double in the bottom of the 2nd inning allowed the Golden Hawks to pull even at 2-2.

Back-to-back home runs in the 5th inning by Amy Hughes and Brooke Cameron put Laurier ahead 5-2 in the 5th inning and reliever Hayley Shackell closed out the 7th inning to give the Golden Hawks a 5-4 victory.

The second game was another match up with an Eastern conference opponent, taking on the number two seed from the East, the York Lions.

The game would turn into a wild, high scoring match-up with York notching 12 hits and Laurier 19. The Golden Hawks bats were led by Cameron and Emma Diegel with 4 hits apiece and Brookyln Graul contributing 3. Halstead and Shackell both collected 3 RBI's.

In the bottom of the 7th inning, trailing by 2 runs, singles by Graul, Natalie Donnelle and Cameron would set the table for a Halstead drive to deep left field that drove in the winning runs.

Both wins advanced the Golden Hawks to Sunday to take on the top seed from the East, the Toronto Varsity Blues. Although Laurier had swept the regular season series with the Blues this time it was all Toronto as Laurier fell convincingly 10-0.

The loss forced the Golden Hawks to take on Windsor to see who would advance to the gold medal game. Laurier had previously played the Lancers 4 times in the regular season and held a 3-1 edge.

Shackell started in the circle for Laurier, working with catcher Olivia Shaddick, and the battery pair were rock solid holding the Lancers to just 6 hits while collecting 11 strikeouts. Artt, Halstead and Avery Hilpert led Laurier with multiple hits as the Golden Hawks took the lead in the 2nd inning and never relinquished it enroute to a 7-3 victory and a rematch with Toronto in the gold metal game.

Just as they had in the earlier game in the tournament, Toronto jumped out to an early lead, scoring 4 times in the 1st inning. Unlike the previous game, Laurier answered back quickly with 3 runs in the 2nd to narrow the margin to a single run. They added 1 in the 3rd to tie the score at 4.

Toronto again jumped up by 4 runs with a single run in the 3rd inning and 3 more in the 4th. Laurier would explode for 5 runs in the top of the 5th inning to take their first lead of the game 9-8 and added 1 more in the 6th to move ahead 10-8. However, 4 Toronto hits in the bottom of the 7th would plate 3 runs and give the Varsity Blues a repeat championship title.

The silver medal, the first medal for Laurier since 2017, earns them a berth in the 2025 Canadian Collegiate Championship to be held in Western Canada.

Earlier in the weekend, shortstop Amy Hughes was awarded the top offensive player award for the Western Conference. Hughes hit 0.471 on the season collecting 32 hits, including 3 home runs and 4 triples. She was a perfect 26 for 26 stealing bases.

The year was an overall success for the team. If you'd like to support the team's trip to Nationals in Fall 2025, you can donate to the team's adopt-a-hawk page.