The Holy Trinity Academy Knights’ vaunted boys rugby program broke new ground on the weekend, capturing its first Tier I provincial championship.
The Knights soundly defeated Lethbridge Collegiate 39-5 in the provincial final, June 9 in Edmonton.
“That’s the one we all wanted,” said Holy Trinity Academy (HTA) head coach Joe Buck of the Knights’ first Tier I provincial title. “Even back when we first started that was always our goal. We decided to opt up (from Tier II) a number of years ago, we kept on working and all the hard work of those boys really paid off.”
The Knights won the 2008 and 2009 Tier II provincial championship before opting to move up to the Tier I level in 2010. Tier I is for schools with more than 1,000 students.
HTA won the consolation final at last year’s provincials after a gut-wrenching loss in drop kicks in the tournament opener.
“It’s satisfying for sure,” Buck said. “The boys should be really satisfied it was their hard work, continuing to work at practices and wanting to get better and be a team and work for each other and that’s what they did.”
The opening matches of the tournament featured short 20-minute halves, meaning it was imperative for the Knights to build an early lead. HTA did just that in its opening match, a 12-5 win over Lindsay Thurber High School from Red Deer on June 8.
The win earned the Knights a date later in the day with Strathcona out of Edmonton in the semifinal, a team Okotoks beat in exhibition play early in the season. HTA would again get the better of the Edmonton school, winning 15-0.
“They had a lot of intensity coming into the game, you could tell right off the get go that they wanted to beat us pretty bad,” said Knights captain Ryan Hassler. “We played a tactical game, we did a lot of kicking and put them on the back foot and they we didn’t allow them to attack us very much.”
Hassler was sidelined all season due to a shoulder separation suffered in the preseason. He admitted to some difficulty in adjusting to his first high school rugby action of the season against the best the province has to offer.
“It was a little tough because it’s the best competition, but it was awesome to be back out there with the guys and playing again,” Hassler said. “My passing, kicking and fitness especially wasn’t as good as it would have been if I was there the whole year, but I’m lucky to have such a great team that my mistakes were not as prominent as they could have been.”
The Knights were with their full complement of players, with injured returnees Hassler and James Read in the line-up for the first time this season.
“I think that was huge,” Hassler said. “Having James out on the wing is a really big help because he’s got so much speed and not a lot of guys can catch him.”
Hassler’s insertion into the lineup at fly-half also put Stephen Ference back at his natural position of full-back.
“Being able to put every player in the position they’ve been for their whole rugby career everyone clicks,” Hassler said.
Read was held out of action at the South Central Zone playoffs due to a charley horse and was at one point considered doubtful to play at provincials.
His presence in the lineup was never more evident than in the provincial final against Lethbridge in which the fleet-footed winger scored three trys in the 39-5 win.
“The first two trys that I got were just a play off the blind side,” Read said. “Basically a pick and go by the (No. 8) and then a pass out to Reid Watkins and then he drew the man and passed it out to me and I beat the defender on the outside.”
Read’s two first half trys came in identical fashion, his third on a 40-yard scamper in the late stages.
“It was just hands all the way out to the wing and I beat him on the outside,” Read said. “It really came down to almost a mismatch on the wing with speed and experience.”
The provincial triumph marked the end of the high school careers for a Knights’ core group who has played together for several years, many of whom with the Foothills Lions youth academy.
“We all knew what we had to do to win the game and it was the last game together with all of our guys,” Read said of the provincial final. “We’ve all been playing together for quite a few years now and had our eye on the goal there and made it happen.”
The Knights were not the sole representatives of the foothills at the provincial tournament.
In the Tier I girls tournament, the Foothills Falcons finished in eighth place with an 0-3 record in Edmonton. The Falcons lost 55-0 to FP Walshe, 26-0 to Sturgeon and 30-5 by Bev Facey in the 7th place match.
Elsewhere, the Oilfields Drillers finished in seventh place in the girls Tier II provincial tournament. Oilfields dropped their tournament opener 7-5 to Beaumont, followed by a narrow 12-5 defeat to the Highwood Mustangs. The Drillers recovered for a 29-5 romp of Frank Maddock in the seventh-place match. The Mustangs went on to win the consolation final.
