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Rugby Roundup

The Lorne Akins Gators will host a seven-a-side junior high co-ed flag rugby tournament Saturday from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the St. Albert Rugby Football Club. Teams from the greater Edmonton junior high league will participate.
FLAG RUGBY
James MacLennan

The Lorne Akins Gators will host a seven-a-side junior high co-ed flag rugby tournament Saturday from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the St. Albert Rugby Football Club.

Teams from the greater Edmonton junior high league will participate. The league normally plays the 10-a-side game instead of the fast-paceD version of the sevens format.

Rick Suggitt, a Canadian 7s coach and the Edmonton Rugby Union’s development officer, will be in attendance. Seven-a-side rugby makes its Olympics debut in 2020.

The St. Albert Blues scored so many points against the visiting Fort McMurray Knights that nobody was sure what the final tally was in Saturday’s second division blowout.

“The ref had the official score at 103, but I had it at 108. I guess once you crack 100 it doesn’t really matter,” coach Cory Albrecht said after the highest-scoring game in the history of the women’s program at the St. Albert Rugby Football Club.

The record for the most lopsided win in club history was the 107-0 throttling of the Pirates in the 2007 men’s second division home opener.

The lady Blues crossed the try line 17 times against the defenceless Knights (1-2). U20 national team hopeful Amanda Lalonde scored a handful of tries at fullback in the first half before she subbed off. Mickel Yuzdepski, Michelle Marler and Marcia Davis also had multiple tries.

“They had no answer for our speed,” Albrecht said.

The Blues (2-0) will scrum down tonight against the rival Druids from Sherwood Park. Kickoff is 7 p.m. at the Leading Edge Physiotherapy Field. In the Edmonton Rugby Union semifinals last year the Druids defeated St. Albert 24-17 in overtime. St. Albert officials appealed the result but were turned down. They argued the Druids stacked their line-up with ineligible players.

On the second pitch tonight the St. Albert Reds (1-1) tackle the Rockers (0-2) at 7 p.m. It marks the first time this season both second division women’s teams are in action on the same day. The Blues are the first 15 side and the Reds are the development squad. The last time St. Albert fielded two women’s teams was 2006.

The third win in four matches by the 2008 Visser Shield finalists in the Edmonton Rugby Union was Friday’s 41-0 rout of the Leduc Crude in St. Albert.

It was a truly athletic effort by the thirds. Too much talent and fitness wore Leduc down. Once the forwards started controlling the rucks, the backs responded with some exciting runs.

An interesting experiment by the thirds was deploying scrum-half Graeme Scott at fullback.

The win lifted the thirds (3-1) into first place. Last week they fell 27-22 to the Lep/Tigers (3-0). The thirds have one more bonus point than the Lep/Tigers in the standings.

The next game for the thirds is Saturday in Edson against the Axemen (2-1) at 2 p.m.

Meanwhile, the Exiles hope to make it two wins in a row when they host the Lep/Tigers at 7 p.m. Friday. The first-year Exiles (1-2) are coming off a 41-5 thumping of the winless Norwesters last week at home.

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