Skip to content

Raiders look to make more history this rugby season

The tough part about making history is always the encore.The Lindsay Thurber Raiders senior girls rugby team became the first tier I team in the region to medal at provincials, finishing with a bronze in 2014.
B2-Rugby
Photo by JOSH ALDRICH/Advocate staff -- for Josh's story -- A Lindsay Thurber Raiders player breaks through a pack of Hunting Hills Lightning during the Central Alberta High School Rugby senior girls season opener at the Red Deer Titans Rugby Club on Wednesday

The tough part about making history is always the encore.

The Lindsay Thurber Raiders senior girls rugby team became the first tier I team in the region to medal at provincials, finishing with a bronze in 2014.

As always at the high school level, there has been turnover on the roster, but they started out their march back to the Alberta championships in style with a 48-5 win over the Hunting Hills Lightning on Wednesday.

“Our girls are still learning, but we do have six really good Grade 12s that played last year on the provincial team, so we expect them to do well,” said Raiders head coach Bill Bowd.

Though there are a number of new faces on the roster, they are stocked with nine Grade 12 players overall, including Sarah Thomas, MacKenzie Tiltstra, Reece McGuire, Molly Romhor, Michaela Harvey, Emily Rittammer, Shaelyn Moltzahn, Bretton Bowd and Cassey Greenwood. It is a talented foundation for them to build off of this year.

Stepping up in their win over Hunting Hills was Romhor with tries while Thomas and McGuire both had two tries.

At this level, that depth is going to be extremely important.

“We have a really strong forward pack, they move the ball well, they carry the ball well,” said Bowd.

However, they are not where they want to be just yet, and have a full season to develop ahead of them.

They have a number of girls on the roster that have taken up rugby for the first time, but there Bowd says there is a lot of potential among their young players.

“For a lot of them this is only their second game, and they’ve already picked up what we want to do as a team and they are running the way we want them to run,” he said.

One of the big areas Bowd says they need to improve is ball control, especially among their backs while their tackling also needs to get better.

“If we get against a team that has a good forward pack and can keep it with that forward pack and they get into our backs, we could get into a little bit of trouble there,” he said.

Last year a lot fell into place for the Raiders in their historic season, but Bowd is taking much more of a wait and see approach to this year.

“That was our goal last year, we had a real strong veteran team and we wanted to finish in the top three,” said Bowd. “If we’re improving along the way we could end up in provincials and once you get to provincials it’s a whole new ball game.”

The Raiders play Rocky Mountain House today at 5 p.m. at the Red Deer Titans Rugby Club.