The Paul Kane Blues put a positive spin on their 32-point margin of defeat against the Sturgeon Spirits in Wednesday’s high school women’s rugby final.
“The first game we played Sturgeon, the score [56-0 May 13] was double what it was today so we’ve built as a team,” co-captain Sabrina Kelly said after the shutout loss in the metro Edmonton premier conference playoff tilt.
Going into the championship match the Big Red Machine was averaging 53.4 points in five wins, all by shutouts. The Blues sported a 4-1 record in qualifying for their ninth premier final in 11 years.
“It’s not like we came out expecting to lose,” said Kelly, a standout player at eight-man. “If we were going to win it was going to be a really close game so we gave it all we had to make it as close as we could.”
The Spirits repeated as premier champions without surrendering a point in one of the most dominating performances by a women’s rugby team in years.
“For us not to get scored on all year is quite exciting,” said Amber Von Grat, a Grade 11 Sturgeon scrum-half. “We’re pretty confident playing defence and offensively we’re pretty strong too.”
The defensive dynamos devoted significant time at practices to protecting their own end of the field.
“We’ve really worked hard on our defensive line and making tackles and we’ve improved a lot on that since the beginning of the season,” said Brie Gray, a Grade 11 Sturgeon inside-centre.
In the final the Blues had only a couple of promising scoring opportunities as Sturgeon dominated time of possession.
“Our forwards are really strong and they were doing really good hammers,” Von Grat said. “We also played really good conservative ball and we communicated really well too.”
Despite attacking the Blues in waves the Spirits only led by 10 points at halftime on tries by Krissy Sheedy in the ninth minute and MVP candidate Tamara Farmer four minutes into the second quarter.
Gray, 16, opened and closed the third quarter with tries. Mariah Mcrae also crossed the try line as the Spirits started to wear the Blues down with their unrelenting pressure.
“We did really well with our ball handling today. We weren’t knocking the ball on as much as we usually do,” Gray said.
Amy Speers rounded out the scoring in the fourth quarter and Jo-ann Selman kicked the conversion.
“They always get on people’s mistakes and if there is a gap they are right on that gap,” Kelly said.
The premier championship was the fourth in five years for the Spirits and the sixth title overall for the women’s rugby program at Sturgeon. It also marked the second straight season Sturgeon finished undefeated. The last loss was the 2008 premier final, a 10-5 setback against Paul Kane.
“It’s awesome that we’ve had such a great season so far,” said Von Grat, 16. “Our coaches said that we have a great chance of winning provincials this year so that’s pretty exciting.”
Provincials kick off Friday at Fort MacLeod for last year’s tier I (4A schools) bronze medallists. It was Sturgeon’s highest finish at provincials after placing sixth at the inaugural 2006 event and fourth in 2007.
“I think we’re actually going to win provincials this year,” said Gray, a starter last year as a rookie. “We’re quicker this year and we have more experience than last year. We did lose a couple of really good veterans but players like Amber, our scrum half, really picked it up for us as a first year player, just like all of our other rookies.”
The Blues and Bev Facey Falcons are the other tier I metro reps at provincials.
“It was good for the team to know [before the final] that it was not going to be our last game together but at the same time it was going to be the last game for a lot of the Grade 12s because we have [departmental] exams starting [June 14],” Kelly said.
Only a few Grade 12s from Paul Kane will make the trip to provincials because of departmentals but Sturgeon head coach Ian Elm expects to have most of his seniors ready to roll.
Elm is confident in his team’s ability to win gold, but expects the Blues will also be in the medal hunt after their effort in the final.
“They played a tight game against us today with a lot of class. They had some big defensive stands and big offensive drives, showing the potential they have for the future. This stems down from their coach [Marty McKeever], who has invested a lot of time and effort into his team,” said Elm, who was asked by the female referee to leave the sideline in the fourth quarter after questioning several of her calls.
