The coach of the Big Sky girls rugby union Tier II co-champions isn’t taking anything for granted in their quest to go back to the provincial high school championships.
The Highwood Mustangs have to get by a bunch of hard-hitting girls from Black Diamond in order to advance to provincials.
“When we played Oilfields we only beat them 19-5 and that was early in the year,” said Mustangs coach Bill Young. “They have some tough kids.”
The Mustangs and the Drillers will square off in the South Central Zone Tier II high school girls rugby semifinal today (May 30) at 10 a.m. at the Calgary Rugby Union. Tier II is for schools with less than 1,000 students.
The Drillers, who finished with a 3-2 record in the Big Sky League, advanced to the semifinals by beating the Olds Spartans 29-12 May 24 in Black Diamond.
“We rucked really well and again our pick-and-drive worked really well for us,” said Drillers coach Aaron Langstraat.
The Drillers won the game despite playing three quarters of the game down one player as a result of Becca Tucker being injured. Due to not having any spares, the Drillers had 14 players while Olds fielded the full 15.
Tucker is a bruising player who scored two trys for the Drillers before going down.
However, that’s when some Driller pride kicked in, according to Oilfields scrum half Shanai Graf.
“It sucked — we all knew we were going to have to play short-handed,” Graf said. “We told each other that we are just going to have to suck it up and get it done.”
Graf is now looking forward to meeting Highwood in the semi-final.
“They beat us last time, but now that we have the boulder,” said Graf of the Drillers’ rugby system. “We have come together more as a team since we played Highwood.”
The boulder, or pick and drive, is when a player picks up the ball after a ruck and bulldozes ahead.
However, the Drillers’ signature play won’t take Young and the Mustangs by surprise.
“I did see Bill Young out here scouting our game so we will have to come up with something different,” Langstraat said.
He agreed with Graf the Drillers are improved since losing to Highwood earlier in the season.
“Highwood is very good at scrumming and getting the ball to their backs,” Langstraat said. “I think our girls learned a lot from that loss to Highwood. In the last couple of games we have worked at controlling the ruck and supporting each other. If we can keep the ball, they can’t score.”
The Drillers’ other tries came from Whitney Boehmer, Stephanie Knight and Sarah Campbell, who also kicked a pair of converts.
The winner of the Drillers-Highwood game will play the winner of the Holy Trinity Academy (HTA) and Springbank Phoenix semifinal also on May 30 at the Calgary Rugby Union.
The Knights beat the Chestermere Lakers 45-7 in the quarterfinal on May 24 at HTA.
Knights head coach Jordan Smith said he is looking forward to playing the defending Tier II South Central Zone champion Springbank Phoenix.
“I am looking forward to playing them because they beat us earlier in the season,” said Smith. “Springbank is a good team and I am looking forward to seeing how much we have actually improved.”
Springbank beat HTA 19-5 on April 19.
The Knights had Melissa Bass back in the line-up in the victory over Chestermere. She was missing in HTA’s loss to Oilfields on May 17.
“I would say Springbank is one of our toughest rivalries,” Bass said. “We have improved dramatically since we lost to them. Our forwards and backs are working together. Our Grade 10 players have worked hard and they are a lot better.”
The Foothills Falcons will vie for the South Central Zone Tier I girls rugby title (1,000 or more students) at 2:30 p.m. at the CRU when they take on the Bow Valley Bobcats.
The Falcons trounced the Bobcats 45-0 in their only previous meeting of the season.
The Calgary Rugby Union is located at 9025 Shepard Road S.E.
