For the seventh-seeded Acadia Axewomen, the initial results were promising. With two huge plays on their first drive, scoring a game-opening try little more than two minutes into the contest — the quickest of the tournament so far — they had, relatively easily, taken an early lead on the second-seeded Queen’s University Gaels.
This had the potential to be something shocking. While the crowd at Thunderbird Stadium had witnessed the eighth-seeded Ottawa Gee-Gees play a competitive half against the first-seeded Victoria Vikes in the first quarterfinal, Acadia hanging with Queens would have been comparatively unthinkable. Even though their seeding for the tournament was relatively close, the most recent U Sports rankings viewed these two teams as the most lopsided matchup of the day — with Queens being ranked as the best team in the country, while Acadia was ninth.
So, with an early 5–0 lead, the Axewomen might have allowed themselves to dream — dreaming of one of the biggest upsets in this tournament’s history. For three minutes, at least. As good teams do, after facing that initial setback, the Gaels stomped the Axewomen in one of the more dominant performances you’ll see at this level. Queens followed up Acadia’s opening try with a 28–0 run, before blowing the doors off their opponent in the second half, outscoring the Axewomen 57–0 in that time.
The Gaels would eventually take the game 90–10 — a blowout that wasn’t just impressive, but historic. In this game, Queens broke the record for the most points ever recorded in a U Sports Women’s Rugby championship game by 14 points — the next closest was the St. Francis Xavier University X-Women, who scored 76 points back in 2011. Acadia’s hopes were a mirage. Queens is for real.
Given how the season had played out already for both teams, a dominant performance like this should have been expected. Being ranked as the number one team in the country since Sept. 15, the Gaels have had a season for the ages. Queens has been exceptional on both sides of the ball, boasting the highest-scoring offence in the country by a margin of 71 points, while also owning the country’s second-best defence, only allowing 34 points all year and only bested by Laval, which has allowed 30.
Even getting more granular with the statistics, the Gaels are still an immensely impressive unit. When they play an inferior team, they don’t just beat them: they embarrass them. In their first regular season game of the year, they beat York University 160–0. In their first playoff game, they beat the Laurier Golden Hawks 116–0. Their star player, Lizzie Gibson, has scored 157 points on the year, more than double the next-best player, who has 75. Even more incredibly, with her 157 points, Gibson has scored more this season than 13 entire teams this year — nearly half of all 27 teams in the country.
Acadia doesn’t have quite the same resume. Only scoring 79 more points than Gibson this year, though they beat the teams they were supposed to beat — namely, Saint Mary’s and UPEI — they fell three times to the St. Francis Xavier University X-Women, their one real competitor within the conference, twice in the regular season and once in the conference championship. While they played the X-Women close in two of their three games, they were definitely unproven coming into this tournament.
Yet, in the first few minutes, they looked like a sleeping giant. The aforementioned early score was an impressive stretch for the Axewomen. After a missed pass on Acadia’s first possession rolled back into their own end, fullback Sarah Williston gathered the loose ball, made a quick step back inside and broke through the Queens line, going on a nearly 50-metre run. While Williston would be stopped, Acadia quickly translated that momentum to points, with a great offload pass to Acadia’s Samantha Reid, fooling the Queens defender, as Reid took the ball the rest of the way for an emphatic opening score.
For Queens, who has been spectacular defensively all year, that kind of a breakdown was uncharacteristic. Given how rare it would be for teams to have the lead on them this year, they could have let that faze them, but for Queens head coach Dan Valley’s team — it didn’t.
“Our crew knows that we're at a national championship here, so there's no such thing as an easy ride,” Valley said. “Any team can score from anywhere in the park at this tournament. So that [early score] wasn't a surprise to us. It happened and then it's just on to the next job.”
The Gaels demonstrated that ability to compartmentalize and keep playing their game almost immediately. Three minutes after Acadia’s opening score, Queens caught Acadia seemingly by surprise, with Madison Jumeau taking the ball quickly after a scrum in Acadia’s end, out-flanking multiple Axewomen defenders before breaking a tackle for the score. With Gibson hitting an easy conversion, the Gaels were up 7–5, and the Acadia lead was gone as quickly as it had materialized. The Axewomen would never see the lead again.
Even though Queens had answered the early Acadia score though, the Axewomen didn’t give up the fight just yet. They would follow up the Queens score by quickly flipping the field, taking a long run into Queens territory, threatening to score again. Ten minutes into the game, the pace that both teams were playing at was significantly faster than any other game on the day. Each team went up and down the field without much resistance on defence. Yet, as Acadia would quickly learn, if you want to get into a track meet — you shouldn’t do it with the highest-scoring team in the country.
With Acadia being called for a knock-on at around midfield, the Gaels quickly turned things around, advancing to the Axewomen’s goal line. Though Acadia would get a good stop while getting the ball back after holding up Queens’ dive for a try, that relief was only temporary. The ensuing kick by Acadia went straight out-of-bounds, giving Queens a scrum 15 metres away from the try zone. With how physically dominant the Gaels are, this was essentially a free score. Queens drove the scrum all the way into the try zone, where Jumeau fell on the ball for her second try of the game. With a conversion from Gibson from a difficult angle, the Gaels were up 14–5.
Unforced errors like the Acadia kick out-of-bounds are inexcusable against a team like the Gaels — with their skill, they’ll make you pay for it every single time. The Axewomen didn’t learn though, and made a questionable decision after getting the ball back. Struggling to make progress against the Gaels defence at around midfield, the Axewomen decided to kick the ball away to improve their field position. This backfired. Queens fullback Rachel Cullum fielded the kick, and with plenty of space in front of her, breaking through multiple Acadia tackles, she returned the ball to essentially the same spot Acadia had the ball before they kicked it away.
Even when Acadia made another great defensive play to hold up a potential try and get the ball back, they once again made an unforced error, kicking the ball straight out of bounds for the second time in a row. Again, taking the ball off a scrum, Queens pushed the ball outside for the try, with Mika Matsukubo diving across to make the game 21–5.
After Queens scored yet again to bring the game to 28–5, Acadia needed to show something to get themselves back in it. With how both teams had been playing, the Axewomen needed to stop the bleeding, and fast. Fortunately, for a moment, they did. After a Queens offside gave the Axewomen some space in the Gaels end, Acadia executed a brilliant string of passes to quickly get the ball out wide to Williston, booking it downfield for a long try.
While still obviously facing a deficit, 18 points was by no means impenetrable. Even if the Axewomen could just keep the score as it was going into half — which was less than five minutes away — that might be considered a success.
Yet, just as with their opening try, they didn’t have an answer for the Gaels’ response. With Queens getting a lineout from 15 metres away with only seconds left in the half, Acadia couldn’t stop the Gaels, who turned their lineout into a maul and easily pushed the pile all the way in for a try.
This play was pretty indicative of how the game went for Acadia. Queens was by far the more physical team — and any time the two teams went to scrum or maul, Queens would easily push ahead for five metres or more. This was true on both teams’ rucks as well. When Acadia had rucks, they wouldn’t be able to get any forward progress, moving laterally as they struggled to break through. For Queens, their rucks gained them an easy two-to-three metres every time. The Queens forwards were simply overpowering — and the longer the match went on, the clearer that became. Given that, you might expect that Acadia, being able to rest and recharge over the halftime break, could come out a bit stronger. This couldn’t be further from the truth.
Right off the opening kick of the second half, fly half Tatum Lougheed fielded a loose ball and immediately found a gap, hitting it with speed to drive deep into Acadia territory 18 seconds into the frame. Then, little more than 40 seconds into the half, Gibson punched the ball into the try zone for the score. With the score 38–10, the Gaels wouldn’t stop there.
In the 38th minute, just under three minutes into the half, Queens struck again, finding a seam up the sideline for a huge run by Kennedi Stevenson for another try, before immediately scoring yet again after another ill-timed Acadia kick in their own end, which was fielded by the Gaels and turned into seven points. Before the half was even seven minutes through, the Gaels had expanded a 33–10 halftime lead into a 50–10 lead, scoring three tries. For Valley, this incredible start to the second half was more indicative of the team he’d been coaching all year.
“I think it was just a very clear understanding that we weren't exactly where we wanted to be as far as how we were approaching the game, the speed at which we were playing,” he said. “That was our goal coming out … to get back to the rugby that we know how to play and we did a nice job doing that.”
WIth nearly a full half-hour left in the game, down by 40, the Axewomen couldn’t do much else than just wait for the game to be over. Little did they know that by the end of this game, the deficit would double. The Gaels poured it on in the second half, with an astounding 57–0 run that included nine tries in the half. The highest scoring team in the other quarterfinal games, Guelph, only managed seven all game.
Even the scorekeepers in Thunderbird Stadium couldn’t keep up with how quickly the Gaels were scoring. When Gibson scored a try in the 49th minute to put Queens up 62–10, after initially displaying a correct score of 60–10, the scoreboard switched to an incorrect score of 57–10 after Gibson made the conversion attempt. The scoreboard would stay about a try behind Queens’ actual score for the remainder of the game — while it may have looked like the Gaels only scored 85 points — they scored 90.
Yet, even after winning by 80, Valley saw some room for improvement in his squad — hoping for them to take a step even further in the semifinals.
“We were a little bit slow out of the gate, but I thought we did a really really nice job coming out of the second half, firing on all cylinders and so happy with how we finished and a lot of good moments in between,” he said. “Just looking to come out a little bit hotter on Friday, that's all.”
After this win, Queens will move on to face the winner of the last quarterfinal of the day: the UBC Thunderbirds. Though UBC is the defending national champion and playing on home turf, with how Queens has played all year, the Gaels should be the favourites in that matchup. For Valley, when looking ahead — he’s confident in his team no matter who they face.
“At this tournament on the championship side of the bracket, anybody can win on any given day,” he said. “We'll do our best against whoever's left standing on the other side when it's all said and done.”
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