By Jeff Gard/Today’s Northumberland
The host St. Mary Thunder will play for the Ontario Federation of School Athletic Associations (OFSAA) girls A/AA rugby championship in Cobourg on Wednesday.
After two huge victories by large margin on Monday’s opening day, the Thunder pulled out a hard fought narrow 5-0 win over Centre Dufferin in the semifinals Tuesday afternoon at St. Mary Catholic Secondary School.
“We were just fighting as hard as we could. They were a really good team to play against and I feel like we matched pretty good and we just tried our best,” said Brooklyn Sleep, who scored the lone St. Mary try about five minutes into the second half when she capitalized on a loose ball after terrific work by her teammates. “You can’t even explain the bliss you feel when you’re at that moment.”
St. Mary withstood and offensive push from Centre Wellington during the final 10 minutes of the game, stopping them at the goal line on multiple occasions including the final play.
“We were really exhausted and we tried really, really hard and we just kept thinking every minute counts,” Sleep said.
The Thunder were coming off wins of 48-0 and 54-0 in pool play Monday, but knew the slate was wiped clean for Tuesday’s semifinal contest.
“Every day’s a different day and every game’s a different game,” Sleep said. “We were expecting to have a good opponent and we got exactly what we thought we were getting.”
That will be the case again Wednesday in the gold medal final against a familiar opponent: the Holy Cross Hurricanes from Peterborough.
Game time is 12:30 p.m. at St. Mary. The Thunder haven’t beat Holy Cross this season but look forward to having one more opportunity in the biggest game of the season.
“We’ve trained a lot and we’ve really worked to get better and I think we’ll do good tomorrow,” Sleep said.
St. Mary’s OFSAA roster includes: Ava Hughes, Maddie McLean, Brianna Bolton, Grace Rice, Bethany Hayward, Sydney Pipe, Grace Seto, Elizabeth Seto, Grace Jenkins, Kiera Martin, Brooklyn Sleep, Sydney Souch, Gloria Nott, Katrina McColl, Sinead O’Riordan, Adia Shaw, Diya Patel, Kaycee Craig, Lachlan McClellan, Meghan Meade, Veronika Mokros, Tatum Ireland, Presley Barton, Leila Briscoe, Mikaela Steward, Maggie Lycett, Ryleigh Woods, Emma Khaimovich, Bella Angelo,Emma Rypstra and Tristan van den Heuvel.
