Rugby players from the Cowichan Valley helped B.C. show its dominance of rugby on the national scene last weekend.
B.C. teams won all four Western Canadian championships contested in Kelowna against all-star teams from the prairie provinces last weekend: the U16 men, U18 men and women, and senior women, with Cowichan players on two of the provincial teams.
Coached by Brentwood College's Marius Felix and Steve Cowie, the B.C.'s U18 women's side included Brentwood players Avi Sharabi, Ciel Arbour-Boehme, Delaney Martin and McKenna Haz, and Emily Lindsay, Hannah Morten and Mariah Fontana from Cowichan Secondary.
According to Felix, Morten and Sharabi were among B.C.'s top players in the tournament.
"Hanna was really, really good in the second game," Felix said. "She scored a try and played great defence. Avi came in as a second-half sub at scrum-half and made a big difference.
The U16 men's team included Shawnigan Lake School students Jim Newman and Jonny Hodgkins, as well as Brentwood College's Harrison Hooke.
Also last weekend, the B.C. U15 and U17 men and U16 women faced Ontario teams in Ottawa, with the U17 men and U16 women sweeping their two-games series, while the U15 men split. Cowichan Secondary's Peyton Eagar and Kyle Joe were joined on the U17 men's team by Kyle Mattison of Frances Kelsey, Nicholas Mouret and Seth Purdey of Shawnigan and Taylor de Souza of Ladysmith, while Brentwood's Denise Roy played with the U16 women.