The North Island junior girls rugby team didn’t exactly get a chance to play for third place in B.C., but they took the bronze medal anyway, and demonstrated that the future of the sport in the Cowichan Valley is in good hands.
The Cowichan-based team, which also includes players from Comox, travelled to Abbotsford last Sunday, expecting to face the Bayside Sharks in the third-place match. It didn’t quite work out as planned.
“When we got there, Bayside was short players, so the game was a forfeit,” explained Sherry Spence, who coached the team along with Kristy Martin Hale.
Bayside ended up grabbing a couple of players from other teams to round out their ranks, and the squads played an exciting game after all.
North Island played to second place on the Island, losing the provincial semifinal to South Island on Nov. 19. North Island and the Cowichan Valley could end being rugby powers for years to come, though.
“The team is officially a U18 team,” Spence pointed out. “But our average age for this team was 15, which is very exciting for the future of girls rugby in the Cowichan Valley.”