Adam Scott Lions repeat as rugby champs
James Strath wins intermediate girls title at KPREAA flag rugbytourney
The Adam Scott Lions intermediate boys flag rugby team thought winning was so nice they did it twice.
The Lions secured back-to-back Kawartha Pine Ridge Elementary Athletic Association (KPREAA) board-wide championships with a 9-6 win over Dale Road in Thursday’s final at the Fleming Sports Complex.
Five boys who helped Adam Scott win last year — Ben Swindells, Alex Parker, Taigen Overvelde, Alex Bubyn, Parker Miller — were back to help defend the title.
“It was definitely teamwork,” Swindells said.
“We moved the ball around. It feels really good to win back-to-back. Adam Scott is a really good school to go to.”
Dale Road was a formidable opponent and led 3-2 until the Lions reeled off four straight points for a lead they carried through to the final whistle.
“It’s a great group of kids,” said Lions coach Mike Colling.
“We started practising the first week of school and the boys and girls at our school just love playing. We have a few of them who play in the Pagans flag rugby throughout the summer which really helps when they come with a skillset they’ve already learned. They became the leaders and help teach the other kids as well. It’s kind of a newer sport so the coaches are all trying to learn the rules because they are a little bit different than regular rugby.”
On the girls side, James Strath beat Port Hope’s Dr. Hawkins 6-4 in the gold medal game.
“It’s a first for our school,” said Strath coach Brad Oakley.
“Rugby is new to KPREAA as of two years ago. Last year our Grade 6 girls won silver so a lot of them were on this team but there were a whole bunch of Grade 8 girls who this was their first crack at it. It’s a great group of girls and a great team.”
One of those Grade 8 girls was Lexi Jenkins who has some Pagans experience.
“It was really cool because we all really wanted to win,” Jenkins said.
“We put together a team last year but it was hard to get together. We made it to KPREAA last year but we didn’t do too well. This year we won so it was really exciting. A lot of our young players were really fast and we have good hands.”
“We had a lot of talent coming in,” said Oakley, “but it was the effort these girls put in. The last four or five weeks we’ve been going four or five days a week for 90 minutes after school each day and I never heard a complaint once. They were willing to put the work in and it showed today.”
The intermediate bronze medallists were Westmount in the boys division and The Pines in girls action.
Chemong Public School won the junior girls division defeating Burnham in the final. The bronze went to Terry Fox.
The junior boys champions were Clarington’s Charles Bowman who defeated Brighton. Grafton took the bronze.