Women’s rugby team remains undefeated following 49-7 victory over Carabins
The University of Ottawa women’s rugby kept on rolling with another huge win on Sept. 15, this time against the University of Montreal Carabins.
The Gee-Gees, playing in their third contest of the season, proved too much for the Carabin squad, easily rolling to a 49-7 victory.
The two teams came in with a bit of animosity, with Montreal’s elimination from playoff contention by the Gees in previous seasons top of mind.
But this one never seemed close, with the Gee-Gees scoring their first try 10 minutes in, followed by another courtesy of Alexandra Ondo less than five minutes later.
The Montreal squad looked gassed after the U of O followed with try after try, including a huge breakaway score from Samantha Ali.
“On that one, I like to listen to my teammates,” Ali said. “They’ll yell things like ‘go all the way,’ or ‘I’m with you’ and stuff, so just hearing their voices is huge, and knowing that if I need to pass they’re there. But knowing they have confidence in me to finish, it’s like yeah, I’ve got to put that burst of speed on and finish it, take it all the way.”
With Ali’s try, the Gee-Gees went up a whopping 22-0 at halftime.
They held Montreal scoreless through nearly 80 minutes of play, but with just a few minutes to go on the clock, the Carabins got their best scoring opportunity of the afternoon on a huge run.
While Ali was able to track down Montreal’s Neomi Tshinkenke at the last second for what appeared to be a huge defensive play, the Carabins were given a break in the form of a penalty try assessed against the Gee-Gees, finally putting some points on the board for them.
“I thought the ball carrier should’ve got the penalty for not releasing. That was the play of the game and I think the referee made a mistake on the call,” Gee-Gees head coach Jen Boyd said. “His interpretation was obviously different from mine, so I respect the referee, and I respect his decision, but I was disappointed.”
As a result, the Gee-Gees were not credited with a shutout, but still won by a large margin.
“I think our tight five finally came together as a group, as a unit. They’re the big girls up front at scrum and lineout and I thought they really dominated today and really got us going forward,” Boyd said.
“I was really, really pleased to see them. You know it takes three or four games to really get your feet in rhythm, and they’re really coming together nicely. So I was really happy with that.”
With the win, the Gee-Gees move up to 3-0, while the Carabins fall to 1-2.
The U of O also retain their number one ranking in U Sports, taking them one step closer to a second consecutive championship.
Still, Boyd said she thinks there’s some important things to tighten up before then.
“I wasn’t happy with our contact at all, and our discipline, again we get pretty anxious about trying to create turnovers at times that we shouldn’t,” Boyd said.
“Those are consistent work-ons, because we’re just so aggressive defensively. We just want to take the ball all the time, so we just need to work on our patience a little bit, and just our movement of the ball wasn’t good today. It took us a while to get going, I thought.”
Next week, the Gee-Gees take on the Concordia Stingers in Montreal on Sept. 22. They’ll be back in action at home again on Sept. 28 against the 3-0 Carleton Ravens. Grab tickets to the game here.
