Some fine-tuning at halftime led to the Holy Trinity Academy (HTA) Knights pulling away from their cross-town rivals in high school girls rugby action May 2.
The Knights took a slim 5-0 lead into halftime against the Foothills Falcons Thursday night at Falcons Field in Okotoks. However, they corrected some mistakes and wound up winning 31-0 to improve their record to 2-1 in the Big Sky Rugby Union while the Falcons fell to 1-1.
The Knights kept shooting themselves in the foot in the first 30 minutes, according to HTA coach Darcy Gallant.
“We just couldn’t finish in the first half — I think we had 20 unforced errors,” Gallant said. “We got our unforced errors down to single digits in the second half and that made a big difference.”
The Knights took some huge momentum into the locker room at halftime when Macaih Schneider steamrolled into the try zone to give HTA the 5-0 lead.
“We had pushed the ball up the field on small runs,” Schneider said. “Finally, with about 20 yards to go, I was able to break through and dive into the try zone.”
She said a good week of practice prior to the game helped as they went into the second half with a slim 5-0 lead.
“I think our girls really got comfortable and we started to use the little things we worked on in practice,” Schneider said. “It helped take it to the next level.”
The Knights doubled their lead to 10-0 when HTA’s Abi Watkins picked up a loose ball on the 12-yard line, broke some tackles and pinned the ball to the try zone to make it 10-0 early in the second stanza. Jackie Fraser would kick the convert to up the lead to 12-0.
HTA just kept riding the wave of momentum.
The speedy Jenna Morrison took a pitch on a penalty and broke through the Falcons’ wall and didn’t stop until 32-yards later when she put the ball down right dab in the middle of the try zone to give Fraser a near gimme convert attempt. She didn’t fail and the Knights had a 19-0 lead.
Morrison would strike again about three minutes later when she took a Watkins pitch, broke a tackle and romped into the try zone. Fraser made the ensuing convert to give HTA a 26-0 stranglehold.
It’s not just Fraser’s strong right leg that provides scoring punch for the Knights. She used both legs in scampering for a 30-yard try in the last minute to give HTA the 31-0 victory.
Falcons coach Jarrett Richardson, who just returned from school in Nova Scotia a few days earlier, said it will take time to get his systems in place.
“We have to work on more secure rucking and our set piece — scrums and lineups — can definitely improve,” Richardson said. “I have had only three practices with the girls so far so I haven’t been able to put in some of the systems that I would like to run in the future.”
Richardson said he did see some positives in his team.
“We kept our width for sure,” Richardson said. “Our backs were running nicely, and our 10 Kailea Bucholz was distributing nicely… It just wasn’t consistent enough.”
He said the game got away from them when the Knights built up momentum. Richardson also went to his rookie Grade 10 players near the end of the game to give them some experience at the high school level.
Falcon back Tianna Going, a Grade 11 student, said the young Foothills squad had a slight letdown when Schneider scored late in the first half.
“HTA has a good team and we held them off pretty well in the first half,” Going said. “But once a rugby team scores the first try it really gives them momentum… We weren’t tackling as well as we should have and Macaih really hurt us.
“Hopefully, we will learn from our mistakes and we will get them next time.”
Gallant said the game was a marked improvement on the team’s loss to Springbank the week before.
“If we had played like this against Springbank, it would have been a different game,” Gallant said. “We were much more organized on defence and we rucked really well.”
In other Big Sky Union girls rugby action the Highwood Mustangs outlasted the Oilfields Drillers 22-10 Thursday in High River. Oilfields’ record dropped to 2-1 while Highwood improved to 2-0.
In action this week, the Drillers will take on the Strathmore Spartans tonight (May 8) in Strathmore. The Falcons are in Chestermere to play the Lakers on Thursday. The Knights go to Calgary to play Rundle College at 5 p.m.
