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As the curtain draws on 2025, we’re looking back at how Unionville Milliken and Scrosoppi conquered the Championship Divisions.

Super Scrosoppi

Nine teams headed into the 2025 Women’s Championship season, with only one able to claim automatic promotion and second place needing to face a Pro/Rel playoff.

The final weeks of the second tier were tight and tense, ending with just one point between the top two, and it was the team from Milton who claimed top spot in the Women’s Championship. A late victory on the final day took them above Hamilton United and into the Premier Division for next year.

After a disappointing end to 2024, which ended in a Pro/Rel playoff defeat to North Mississauga, Scrosoppi came into this season with hopes of taking one further step and getting out of the second tier. A 4-0 home defeat to Pickering in the L1 Cup wasn’t a dream result to kick off the year, but putting all their energies into the regular season paid dividends.

Their league campaign started with a 3-0 win over Rush Canada, with Emily Dinatale, Natalie Moynihan, and Aalayah Lully finding the net to begin 2025 perfectly. SFC soon realized that promotion would be no simple feat, however, with defeats in the next two games, against Oakville and Whitby.

They did find their form eventually, though, and were only defeated once until July 20. Some impressive performances resulted in a 5-1 win over Burlington, a 4-2 triumph over Pickering, and a 4-1 victory against Tecumseh.

Forward of the Year Jahkaya Davis and MVP Yasmin Castillo formed a fantastic strike partnership, and it was the latter’s 86th-minute goal at Pickering on the final day that secured promotion for Scrosoppi.

Their success was recognized at the end-of-season awards, with Davis and Castillo also named in the All-Stars XI, alongside Ella Cahill, Tierra Bennett, and Evana Eyubeh. John Yacou earned the Coach of the Year award for being the mastermind behind the side’s promotion push.

Level-headed success

In the Men’s Championship, two teams were promoted automatically from the second tier, and a Pro/Rel playoff awaited the third-placed team.

As an exciting 2025 season came to a close in August, it was Unionville Milliken and Sudbury Cyclones who claimed the coveted automatic promotion spots and finished 2025 with 43 points each, three ahead of The Borough in third.

Following a fourth-placed finish last season, UMSC’s aim for 2025 was to push on into the top three for a shot at promotion, and their campaign started in perfect fashion with a resounding 3-0 victory at Windsor City, five days after beating Rush Canada in the L1 Cup.

A difficult run of games followed, and only a cup win on penalties over Whitby and a 2-1 victory against Waterloo United could be celebrated until the middle of July, when their form eventually picked up. Although they were defeated by Premier Division outfit Simcoe County Rovers to end their L1 Cup dreams on June 19, an impressive unbeaten run followed.

With coach Donovan Taffe steering the ship, huge victories during the final months of the season, including 5-3 and 4-1 at home and away against Hamilton United, 5-2 and 2-1 against Guelph United, and a final-day 3-1 triumph at York United, were enough to secure the title.

George Akpabio was the star of the show throughout the season and had a July and August to remember with 12 goals throughout the run-in. His 18 league goals in total saw him finish as the runner-up in the goalscoring charts, but he still claimed the MVP award while being named as the Forward of the Year.

For the Cyclones, it was their early season success that set them up for a promotion party in August. A spectacular start to 2025 saw them avoid defeat in their first eight games, and five wins in that time had them flying high in July.

Their form never truly dipped throughout the summer, with consistent results home and away, helping them claim second place. Several defeats to the likes of Waterloo United, Windsor City, and Master’s FA rocked the boat a little, but with only 23 goals conceded all season, their defence set the standard for the rest of the division to follow.

The man between the sticks, Connor Vande Weghe, was named the Goalkeeper of the Year thanks to his nine clean sheets, and his boss, Giuseppe Politi, was chosen as the Coach of the Year thanks to his promotion success.