L’Université Laval Rouge et Or extended their stay at the U Sports Women’s Rugby Championship with an impressive offensive showing over the Acadia University Axewomen. They walked away with the 41–7 win on Friday in their consolation semifinal match.
This match was the second consolation semifinal of the day, and it played similarly to the first. In that first game, Laval’s intra-conference rival, the University of Ottawa Gee-Gees, had their own commanding win, rolling over the Saint Francis Xavier University X-Women 55–3. With both teams from the RSEQ winning their consolation games, it sets up a re-match of the conference final from two weeks earlier — where Laval beat Ottawa 41–19 — with fifth place on the line.
Heading into this contest, the Axewomen were looking to rebound after an abysmal opening performance. Acadia lost their quarterfinal game in a brutal matchup against the Queen’s University Gaels, falling 90–10. Although the Axewomen started off the scoring with a try, they quickly lost any chance for the win, being unable to stop the Gaels offence.
Giving up 57 points in the second half, Acadia allowed Queens to set a new U Sports record for the most points in a women’s rugby national tournament game. This result was not surprising, however, as Queen’s was most recently ranked as the top team in the country, before the tournament and Acadia — while in the top 10 — sat at ninth.
Laval had a much different quarterfinal matchup, starting the tournament facing the host team, the UBC Thunderbirds. As the winners of their conference — being ranked second in the country before nationals, the Rouge et Or were a strong contender to make it far. However, their shot at the championship was dashed, as UBC played a strong defensive game, holding them to only 10 points and taking the win 32–10.
“We were very disappointed by our performance Wednesday. So we're happy about the results today,” said Laval’s player of the game Corine Bellavance.
Right after the whistle blew, Laval wasted no time getting on the board. After a bit of back and forth, the Rouge et Or quickly gained possession close to the try-line, with a block of Acadia’s kick attempt. With ruck after ruck, they stayed about one metre away before being finally able to get the ball down to score. With that try, Laval had taken a 5–0 lead in the first minute of the game — becoming the second team that day to score that early.
After another early try six minutes later, Laval continued their offensive push, as they slowly gained ground up the field and pushed closer to the try zone with ruck after ruck. When the ball came loose close to the try zone, the Rouge et Or’s Anne Lamothe picked up the ball and surged forward right under the uprights. After the conversion, Laval was up 19–0 less than 15 minutes into the game. Lamothe did fairly well to make conversions in this match, with three in a row in the first half, which, combined with her try, earned her 11 points in the game.
Despite their multi-try lead, Laval didn’t let up. Only a few minutes later, the Rouge et Or made it back into the try zone again, as Bellavance got the ball from just around the 22-metre line. In an impressive offensive display, she found some space down the right sideline, cutting through four would-be tacklers before diving past the try-line to touch the ball down for Laval’s fourth try of the game. With one more try later in the first half, the Rouge et Or had already run away with the game, up at halftime 31–0.
The second half mostly continued the same as the first, but Laval started to slow down on offence, playing more conservatively to preserve their lead — while also taking some more penalties as the rain started to fall heavier. In the first 10 minutes, there was some back and forth from both teams, and although the Rouge et Or still continued to mostly dominate possession, the Axewomen showed some signs of life, trying to stay in the game.
Laval scored two more tries in the second half — one in the 46th minute and one in the 56th — to extend their lead to 41–0, but with some late stage heroics, Acadia was able to get on the board. When Acadia’s Lucy Caldwell made a great interception, perfectly reading the Rouge et Or pass, she was able to break away with the ball for a long run. She got to the 30-metre line before she offloaded it to Gabby Shaw, who ran it right into the try zone. With such a beautiful try, Acadia earned themselves seven points, and although it was too late to catch up, they could take some solace in the fact that they ended the game with some points on the board.
As such a highly ranked and proven strong team throughout the season, Laval was definitely the favourite heading into this one, and in the end, they had no problem getting the victory. They were a much improved team from their game against UBC. After being mostly shut down by the T-Birds, they scored from all over the field, with seven tries scored by seven different players. Even with this impressive result, however, the Rouge et Or weren’t quite satisfied with their performance, as they look to continue to improve with their next match: a fight for fifth place.
“It's good. I think we did better than on Wednesday, [but we] can still do better,” said Laval’s head coach François Vachon-Marceau. “Just try to put our style of play a bit better, shoot it a bit better on the field.”
“We didn't do as well as we wanted to do, [with] the penalties and everything. So maybe that [is] something we want to get working on for Sunday's game,” said Bellavance. “Our defense was very aggressive, so [we were] happy we put pressure on them.”
They will face off against the University of Ottawa Gee-Gees, a team they know very well from their two previous matchups this year, which Laval won both of, including the aforementioned conference championship. The consolation final will take place on Sunday, opening the last day of the tournament.
“It's always a good revolving game, and I know we beat them twice this year, so they're going to be highly motivated to beat us. So [we] just need to show up,” said Vachon-Marceau
“They're gonna come on the field, want[ing] to give everything,” said Bellavance. “We need to do the same, and not take for granted the fact that we won two games against them.”
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