Even Shawnigan Lake’s coaches and players were surprised last Thursday when they defeated Brentwood College 59-5 in a senior girls rugby battle.
“We weren’t expecting that at all,” Shawnigan coach Laura Russell said. “Brentwood always has a really good squad, and they have some really good players.”
Although her team’s offence was obviously on fire against Brentwood, Russell was also impressed with the team defence.
“The girls played really well,” she said. “They came out strong and implemented a lot of the defence we had been talking about. We had a lot of try-saving tackles, too. Our back three played excellent rugby.”
Brentwood coach Marius Felix acknowledged that his team just wasn’t able to match Shawnigan that afternoon.
“Shawnigan has assembled a very impressive squad and, frankly, we were soundly beaten by a better team on the day,” he said. “We competed for the first 15 minutes or so, and then their power and size started to wear us down. We will get better and we are working hard to address our shortcomings as the season continues.”
The rivals will meet again in the Island final on May 14 at Shawnigan at 2:30 p.m.