Rugby Women grab big wins in exhibition tournament

TRURO, N.S. - Acadia's Varsity Women's rugby team stormed into the 2014 season with 4 big exhibition wins to begin the year.

Acadia opened the exhibition season against UPEI and posted a 31-0 victory.  "We started really slow, much too slow, and let UPEI control the opening minutes of the game" reported Acadia Head Coach Matt Durant.  But after sustaining a prolonged UPEI attack, Acadia bent, but didn't break, and soon sped the other way off a broken UPEI play and scored the opening try of the game.  Once the flood gates opened Acadia didn't relent and quickly opened the gap on UPEI, finishing them 31-0.

In the 2nd game of the day, the Acadia women dismantled the Dalhousie Tigers 59-0 in a game which featured an outstanding performance by prop Emalee Doyle.

A fresh but young Acadia team took the field for their 3rd game, playing against Saint Mary's University and were quickly behind on the scoreboard when SMU scored in the opening minute.  Things went decidedly SMU's way for the following few minutes, and Acadia was trailing 17-0 at the half.  Strong words from the coaching staff and some key substitutions changed the flow of the game significantly, and Acadia scored 31 unanswered points to finish with the 31-17 victory.

In their final game of the tournament, the Axewomen faced off against their toughest competition of the day in St. FX.  Acadia wasted no time regaining possession off the opening kick-off and controlled the ball deep in the St. FX half through several successful attacking phases before scoring under the posts.  The successful conversion put Acadia up 7-0.  Though missing 6 key starting players, Acadia again quickly turned the ball over in the St. FX half off the restart and within minutes had scored again to go up 14-0.  Though St. FX was unable to venture into Acadia territory, the St. FX defence stiffened and despite a relentless Acadia attack and several penalties, St. FX was able to hold Acadia to only one additional try in the first half, through Shannon White.  The successful conversion had Acadia up 21-0 at the half.

Both teams made numerous substitution at the half. St. FX was able to capitalize on an errant pass early in the half which they took the other direction, scoring under the posts to narrow the score to 21-7.  The teams battled back and forth at mid-field for most of the 2nd half and little progress was made by either team before St. FX sprung loose to score another try, which would round out the scoring, Acadia victorious, 21-14 the final.

Acadia coach Matt Durant had the following to report, "We looked really good at times today and not so good at others.  But, overall, I was very impressed with the way we played today.  We were missing many key players (today) due to injury and I was so impressed with the effort that our ladies put forward.  There were a lot of great performances by our rookies and some unexpected and positive efforts put forth by some of our players who were on the bubble to make our team.  It is exciting to see how ready our girls are to play.  When given the opportunity today, many of our players proved they are ready to step into key spots and perform the way we need them to.  It is going to be a very exciting season."