There was a bit of a smirk on her face as she said it.
“You may have seen more kicks.”
For University of Victoria Vikes head coach Brittany Waters, the monsoon-like conditions at Thunderbird Stadium were of no concern. While the rain pelted down, with the field slick — sloppy play and dropped balls abound — the Vikes didn’t seem to care. They were built for this.
“I mean we play in the rain all the time here in BC,” said Waters. “We're not too fussed about it. We have game plans for both dry weather and wet weather, and we put everything that we needed to into this game knowing that it was going to be a rainy day.”
That game plan for Victoria was — rather than try to inch the ball up the field and rely on the consistency of their passes — to play the field position game. Almost any time the Vikes got the ball, they would boot it back to their opponent, kick after kick. While it may have seemed counter-intuitive to willingly give up the ball as much as they did, their strategy worked wonders. With almost every Victoria kick, the opposing University of Guelph Gryphons struggled mightily to field the ball, often scampering backward, scrambling to pick up a loose ball.
Trapped in their own end of the field, Guelph needed to be perfect. They weren’t. Coming across the country from Ontario, the Gryphons didn’t seem to have any response for Victoria’s rainy day dominance. Guelph got down early, and they stayed down. The Gryphons were held without a single point against the Vikes, losing 42–0, the only team in the tournament to not score in a game. This was especially surprising considering that, in the regular season, Guelph was the second-highest scoring team in the country. While the conditions obviously played a role in the Gryphons’ offensive ineptitude, holding a team like Guelph scoreless is a massive credit to a team’s defence.
“I say it all the time, but defence is a huge part of our game and who we are,” said Waters. “We knew that if we could pin them in their half our defense would shine.”
And shine they did. While this kind of performance is to be expected from the number one seed in the tournament, it is impressive considering the competition. Guelph looked solid in the quarterfinal — putting on a show behind team captain Taylor McKnight, who led a scoring run that saw the Gryphons put up 19 points in 10 minutes, blowing away the St. Francis Xavier X-Women in a game they controlled for a full 70. Judging solely off quarterfinals performance, one might have even thought Guelph was the better team heading into this one.
While Victoria was by no means threatened in their game against Ottawa to open the tournament, they did at least get a bit of an early scare. With the Gee-Gees dominating possession in the first half, even with a 14–8 lead at halftime, the Vikes had to be a little concerned with. Of course, they then blew the doors off Ottawa in the second half, but their game was nowhere near as complete as Guelph’s was. When the game kicked off on Friday, none of that seemed to matter.
“We had a little bit of nerves in the quarterfinal — started a little slow,” said Waters. “I think we got those out of our system, and coming to this game, I just knew we were gonna have a strong performance.”
There were no nerves here. With Victoria’s opening kickoff bouncing off the chest of the Guelph receiver only six seconds in, the Vikes were set up for a penalty kick, with a chance to take the lead before most fans had even found their seats. From a decent distance, Olivia Newsome drilled a low, high-velocity kick, putting Victoria up by three almost instantaneously.
Some back-and-forth, sloppy play would follow, with plenty of penalties, dropped balls, missed tackles and slips, but with Victoria’s strategy of kicking it deep starting to take shape, the Vikes took advantage. Yet, on this kick, it wouldn’t be Guelph on the receiving end. Victoria was kicking to themselves. With a sky-high boot, the ball hung in the air just long enough, travelling about 10 metres down field and giving Newsome enough time to settle under the ball, catch it cleanly and immediately swerve past a Guelph defender.
While a great Guelph tackle would save the try, their defence could only hold so long. With Victoria knocking on the door, right at the Gryphons’ goal line, the Vikes distributed it out wide, and UVic’s Eden Kilgour — despite bobbling the wet ball initially — was able to secure it and dive across for the try.
After the Vikes got another penalty kick to bring their advantage to 11, they went back to using their legs. Even when Guelph was able to field the Vikes’ kicks cleanly, they still paid the price. In the 22nd minute, after a booming UVic kick took the ball from their own end to midfield, Victoria fullback and newly-anointed U Sports player of the year Carissa Norsten absolutely flattened the Guelph back, one of the more bone-crushing tackles of the weekend. The ball popped loose, which was a knock-on against Guelph, with Victoria gaining field position and the possession.
Victoria’s ability to take advantage of the weather didn't stop there. Immediately after that play, the Vikes kicked it again. Off the hands of Guelph, right to Norsten. With all that field position they had gained off those two kicks, the Vikes were primed to capitalize. Getting the ball off a scrum, the Vikes completed a few passes out wide before Maggie Mackinnon burst through the Guelph line, running almost untouched for the score.
Though there was obviously some concern for Guelph in being down by 18, before they could even think about making up that score, they first had to figure out how to get the ball out of their own end. Almost the entire half was played on their side of the field, and any time they managed to get close to crossing the midfield stripe, Victoria would boot it over their heads.
Even when the Gryphons attempted to give UVic a taste of their own medicine, getting off a decent kick late in the half to reset the ball to midfield, the Vikes had none of the same issues coming down with the ball. In fact, it almost seemed to spark the Victoria attack. The Vikes caught speed off the kick, immediately taking the ball back across the half with some good passing. Even when Newsome had a pass go behind her, she was able to fall back on it, kick a grubber down the sideline and push the ball back deep into the Guelph end.
While Victoria couldn’t convert on that chance, with how easily the Vikes were pushing play into the Guelph half, it was only a matter of time before they scored again. Off a lineout about 30 metres from the Gryphons’ try zone, the Vikes were able to chip the ball out wide, finding a streaking Vanessa Chiappetta, who gave a quick little fake before tearing open the Guelph defence for a long try. The Vikes would add three more before time expired on the frame, going into half up 28–0.
The Gryphons were technically still in it — after all, again, this team scored 19 points in only 10 minutes a couple days earlier — but they didn’t look like that same team. Another benefit of Victoria’s strategy of kicking it deep was that, by not allowing their opponent within even 30 metres of their try zone, they left them demoralized. Guelph had given up the fight.
“It's a big territory game for us,” said Waters. “A lot of mistakes can happen in the rain and if we're gonna make mistakes, [we’d] way rather [they] happen in their half than our half.”
While it’s one thing to not be able to cross into your opponent’s half, it’s another thing entirely to then watch them turn around and flip the field with ease. Ten minutes into the second half, with Victoria just barely on their own side of midfield, Mackinnon found a crack in the Guelph line and took advantage. Shedding four or five would-be tacklers, Mackinnon brought Victoria within scoring range in seconds, before — off a dropped pass — Victoria’s Kyla Warren picked up the loose ball and dodged another three Guelph tacklers for the try. Within a minute, Victoria had gone from their own end to paydirt. Even though there were 25 minutes left, it was game over.
After a bit of a shaky performance from their standards in the quarterfinals, the Vikes rebounded convincingly, with a dominant showing against an even better opponent. By beating Guelph, Victoria punched their ticket to the national championship game for the third consecutive year. While they lost the previous two, including last year’s 8–3 heartbreaker against UBC, they’ll be looking to break that streak this time, coming off an impressive performance.
“We thrive at nationals. We are so excited to go to the final again,” said Waters. “We showed up last year in the final and just didn't quite go our way … we're ready to show up again, and hopefully put in a similar performance [to what] we had today and maybe even raise [it] up even better.”
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