Rivers wins fourth girls rugby title in a row

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This article was published 12/06/2022 (1356 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Rivers Rams are Manitoba’s high school girls rugby champions again, winning their fourth consecutive provincial title with a 34-14 victory over the Dauphin Clippers at John Reilly Field on Sunday.

It was a rematch of the Westman High School Rugby League girls final the Rams won 20-7, and the third time in the last six years the two clubs have met in the provincial final.

Since no Winnipeg teams entered the tournament, the two Westman teams advanced directly to the final without semifinal matchups.

“They definitely had their best game,” Rivers coach Kat Muirhead said of her players. “It was awesome to watch the flow of the game. If you notice, the ball goes across, back the other way, we were making passes, it was beautiful. It really was.”

Rivers, which played as the Minnedosa Chancellors until this season and also shares the team with Elton Collegiate, went 5-0 during the regular season.

It’s the first time a Westman high school rugby team has won four provincial titles in a row. Rivers beat Sisler 58-5 in 2019, topped Dauphin 29-7 in 2018 and also got by Dauphin 24-12 in 2017.

Dauphin coach Aaron Miner said the result wasn’t a huge surprise for his club, which dressed the minimum 15 players, including two girls making their debuts.

“It was exactly what I thought it was going to be,” Miner said. “That team from Rivers is well deserving of being league and provincial champion. They have a great core of veteran players that are all very athletic and they once again proved it.

“Our team is young. We’ll be coming back for another try next year. We’re only losing three players and hopefully we get to meet Rivers again and the score is the other way around.”

On Sunday afternoon, Rivers took control of the game off the opening kickoff, gaining possession, pushing the ball forward, kicking it deep into Dauphin territory, regaining possession of the ball and scoring when Brianne Zemliak pushed across for the first of her two tries.

“Getting one in early got us started,” Zemliak said. “It just gets us going.”

Her twin Brooklyn Zemliak added an almost identical try a few minutes later, and the game appeared to be getting away on Dauphin when Kennedy Wood ran for a long try and Karas Munz also scored to give Rivers a 22-0 lead.

Before the first half ended, however, Gina Zurba touched the ball down and Brooke Miner kicked the first of her two converts to pull the Clippers back to 22-7.

Any hope of Dauphin building on their success late in the first half came to a screeching halt early in the second half when Alexis Pompana replied for Rivers, and Brianne Zemliak added her second try.

Dauphin’s Gina Zurba finished up the scoring in the final few minutes.

Miner was pleased his team never stopped pushing after falling in the early hole.

“That’s our leadership, our four Grade 12s that we have,” Miner said. “Before the game even started, I said ‘Let’s do it for them. Let’s do it for the girls who may never play again.’

“And our captain (Emma Fox), who is a Grade 11, reminded the girls after we got down quick that ‘Hey, this is not how we’re doing it for them, let’s pick it up and a notch,’ and they did. I’m quite proud of what they accomplished today.”

Rivers coach Cody Pollon also noticed his opponent wasn’t giving an inch, despite all 15 Clippers playing the entire game.

“They pushed hard,” Pollon said. “Their flat line was good, their defence was good. I think there were a couple of runners who were running pretty hard. A lot of teams were down in numbers this year and a lot of girls on a lot of teams came out and played very good rugby after not playing for two years.

“It was great for Dauphin to come out like they did and give us great competition.”

The championship was that much sweeter for Rivers after the girls rugby powerhouse lost two seasons to the pandemic.

Pollen noted that with COVID restrictions, this year’s roster didn’t have the normal amount of training time in the gym but still pushed to improve.

“These girls learned very quickly how to play this game, and a lot of them have passed our expectations of what should have been done this year,” Pollon said. “It’s pretty amazing to watch these kids learn to love the game and play it really, really hard.”

Zemliak was one of five seniors for Rivers who was experiencing a bit of a bittersweet day as the quintet suited up for the last time. She and her sister were part of the 2019 championship team when she was in Grade 9 and they will cap their careers with another title.

“It’s so nice,” Brianne Zemliak said. “I really didn’t think we would get this season but I’m so happy that we did.”

So, is four titles a big improvement on three?

“It’s a whole lot better,” Muirhead said with a chuckle. “It’s pretty sweet tasting.”

» pbergson@brandonsun.com

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