SUDBURY, Ont. - For the first time in five years, Laurier's women's curling team are heading back to nationals despite a silver medal finish at the OUA women's curling championship this past weekend in Sudbury.

With three spots available to OUA programs, the Golden Hawks booked their ticket for Lethbridge, Alberta and the 2025 U SPORTS/Curling Canada University Championships from February 24-28 after securing a 9-3 win over eventual bronze medalist Queen's in their semi-final draw on Sunday afternoon.

Although they came up just shy of winning the 11th OUA title (and 13th provincial title overall) in women's curling program history, after a 5-3 loss in the final to McMaster, the team of skip Emma Artichuk, Victoria Zemmelink (second), Sarah Bailey (vice), Logan Shaw (lead), and Rebecca Rankin (alternate) left the Idylwylde Gold & Country Club at peace with the result.

"We all knew what the first and second game (Sunday) meant, and those were obviously priorities for us. We would've loved to win the last game, but I think we didn't come out with our best start, unfortunately," said Laurier women's curling head coach John Gabel. "We're happy to be going to Lethbridge, but we would've loved a better showing in the final."

Heading into the conference championships with a 13-2 record over three invitational bonspiels, Laurier was carrying lot of positivity within the team - which saw Artichuk as the only returnee from a season ago.

"We've had some good showings in the exhibition events, so we were hoping to feed off of that," Gabel said. "I think everyone brought a good mindset and attitude, so we were able to lock in and focus. Even through some adversity, we came back and had some positive results to get into the playoff round."

"We're blessed to have student-athletes with past experience ay the OUA championships with other schools, so that certainly made the transition much easier."

The team obviously didn't miss a beat with Artichuk making her debut as the team's skip, especially coming off a run to the finals of the Northern Ontario Scotties just a week earlier.

"She had a lot of confidence coming into this," Gabel said. "I think that trickled through the rest of the line-up. Everyone bought into what their role was ... and it was awesome to see."

Artichuk, who was named an OUA second-team all-star, conveyed her excitement with getting the team to nationals for the first time in her Laurier career.

"Since we've started (at Laurier), we haven't had that opportunity. It just feels really good and so proud to do that as a skip this year," Artichuk said. "We want to bring home gold for Laurier, but just to be able to go is so exciting. We can't wait."

Reflecting on the team's overall success over the three days in Sudbury, the communications studies major from Ottawa, Ont. how the team's chemistry was "so critical to our success".

"Anytime we maybe weren't playing as well as we wanted to, the team chemistry pushed us along," she said. "At the end of the day, we're playing for (Laurier) and your teammates, so it's a lot easier to do that when you're so close as we are."

Fellow teammate Zemmelink, an education post-grad student from Forwich, Ont. also received first-team OUA all-star honours and her coach was quick to praise both of his standout student-athletes.

"They both played great for almost the entire event," Gabel said. "I'm sure they each have a shot here or there they would've loved back, but I think they were the backbone of why we were able to have a lot of the results  that we did."

With a couple of weeks to prepare before flying out west to compete against the best from U SPORTS, Gabel is confident in the team's ability to bring home its first national championship since 2012 and fifth overall.

"If we're at our best, we'll give any team a run - and that's all you can really ask for."