Four Cowichan Valley rugby players, including three returnees, will try to help the BC U18 women's sevens team improve on a third-place finish at last year's Las Vegas Sevens tournament.
Brentwood College's Ciel Arbour-Boehme, Shawnigan Lake School grad and current UVic Vike Nicole Crowley, and Cowichan Secondary School senior Adrienne Saari will be joined by newcomer Hannah Morten, also of Cow High. The athletes were among approximately 50 who attended trials in December and a camp earlier this month as Brad Skene, head coach of the BC U18 team and Cowichan Secondary, put together the team. "Part of Adrienne's strength is her intelligence as a player," Skene noted. "She knows her limitations and what she does well. She will put her hard hat on and go to work being a physical presence.
"Hannah brings very good game sense to the field. She is faster than she appears and is a competitor. We will need her to defend well and help win the ball at the tackle."
The BC U18 team will be making its second appearance in Vegas later this month, with more than a dozen other teams in the Girls High School division.
"Our goals this year are to develop the players' skill level, to execute fundamental strategies and to compete in every aspect of the game," Skene said. "I would like to say one of our goals is to be in the final, but it is so difficult to predict how the opposition will play without having previous knowledge of them. This is a great situation for our players to test themselves against strong competition."