Fleming hosts OCAA rugby finals Saturday
The Fleming Knights women’s rugby program is once again in the hunt for an OCAA championship but with a twist this year.
The Knights won the OCAA 15’s championship the past two years but this year are playing sevens rugby. The OCAA had separate 15’s and sevens leagues last season but this year eliminated 15’s play all together.
Fleming is hosting the oneday, six-team provincial championships Saturday at the Fleming Sports Field Complex. They enter as the third seed after placing third of nine teams with a regular season record of 11-5. They tied the Seneca Sting for second place but the Sting took second seed by outscoring Fleming 12-10 during their two regular season encounters. Fleming won their first game 5-0 but lost the second 7-5.
The H umber Hawks enter as the heavy favourites following a 16-0 campaign.
The Knights will face the Conestoga Condors in a quarterfinal game at 10:30 a.m. The other quarter-final pits the Algonquin Thunder against the Loyalist Lancers at 10 a.m. If Fleming wins they will face Seneca in the semifinals at 11:30 a.m. with the bronze medal game at 2 p.m. and the gold medal gam at 2:45 p.m. Humber and Seneca get a quarter-final bye.
Anticipating the move to sevens, Fleming coach Shannon Burton took her team to a year-end sevens tournament last year in Niagara which they won.
“We didn’t really know what we were doing at that point and did it just for fun,” Burton said. “We ended up beating HUmber and Conestoga and Brock in that tournament.”
They graduated some key players but also had a decent core returning and some players back from two years ago, said Burton, but they got off to a bit of a slow start.
“The transition from 15’s to sevens is a big change so it’s taken us some time to adapt to that,” she said. “Our girls have done fairly well. It’s a different style and it’s such a short, fast-paced game that a lot can change off just one mistake.”
Sevens rugby features two, seven-minute halves so the games are short and fast-paced.
“We expect a lot our of our athletes,” Burton said. “We have good athletes, good rugby players and we see what they are capable of. We expect them to play to that level on the field and there were definitely some instances over the course of this season where they weren’t performing the way they could either because of fitness – it’s a very, very exhausting game – or whether their heads weren’t quite in it that day or they let the other team get in their heads. There were some frustrat- ing moments for us trying to keep them at the level we think they can be at.”
Burton recruited Khalil A jr am, a sevens specialist, to work with the team in recent weeks.
“They’ve responded really well to him,” Burton said. “He’s been a huge help.”
Kay returning players include Jacin the Addai-Sarfo, Erin Gawley, from the 2015 team, Megan Dick, Tori Bailey, also from 2015, and Kasey Hislop. They also have a strong rookie in Crestwood grad Harlynn Beauchamp-Phillips who was 14th in league scoring.
Fleming was 2-0 against Conestoga with the closest margin a 17-0 win.
“They’re a big, strong team,” Burton said. “A little bigger than us up front but as long as our girls show up focused and ready to play we should be able to make it through that round but, again, it’s sevens so you never know.”
Missing Gawley in their second match against Humber, Burton said they played well enough to gain some confidence against the pre-tournament favourites. She’d love to get the opportunity to play them again as it would mean an appearance in the final. “It’ s going to be a tough feat to beat them but it’s not impossible,” she said.
Burton hopes to see the championship pedigree many of her women showed the past two seasons when it mattered.
“They can do it ,” she said .“If they focus and play the way they can, I have no doubt in my mind we’ll be int hat gold medal game. It’s all the little things coming together at the same time.”
It will be a full day of playoff rugby at Fleming as the men’ s team takes the field after the gold medal game for their OCAA semifinal match. The East Division leading Knights (5-1) will face the Sheridan Bruins at 4 p.m.