From Day One, Lindsay Thurber Raiders boys rugby head coach Dean Plant was convinced that he had something special.
Clearly, he was on to something, as the Raiders dominated the Central Alberta High School League and then ran over the competition at the provincial boys’ high school championship tournament in Lethbridge.
“We knew we had a chance to win provincials with the team we had, we just didn’t know the calibre of teams we’d see at provincials,” Plant said Sunday, one day after his crew thumped Edmonton St. Francis Xavier 42-14 in the championship match.
“The guys played excellent all weekend. They were awesome,” added Plant, whose crew reached the final with 41-0 and 25-0 shutouts of Sturgeon and Cochrane Friday. “They played exactly the way they were supposed to play. They really worked as a team, there was no individual play. It was textbook rugby.”
The Raiders prevailed due to a surplus of talent and character.
“We had a lot of skill and a lot of depth,” said Plant. “Having Grady Bowd with us really made a difference because he knows the game so well, but he was also surrounded by a lot of talented players.”
Bowd scored two tries and added six conversions in the title match. Ryan Clark also had two tries and Londyn Chu and Luke Madill each scored one for the Raiders, who finished fourth in the provincials two years ago and were third in 2009.
l The Rimbey Spartans won bronze in the Tier 2 girls’ division, beating Leduc 8-5 as Rebecca Olson kicked a penalty kick to break the deadlock. Christy Weisf scored Rimbey’s try.
The Notre Dame Cougars defeated Foothills 41-12 in their final game to finish fourth in the Tier 1 girls’ category. In their first two matches, the Cougars fell 10-0 to Lethbridge Collegiate Institute (LCI) and hammered Medicine 48-0.
Raymond crushed LCI 50-0 for the gold-medal.