The Ravens women’s rugby team’s breakout season ended on Oct. 20 in Quebec City, against the Laval Rouge et Or in the RSEQ semi-finals. The team’s playoff run ends after just one game as the Ravens lost by a score of 23-12.
It was an unprecedented season for the Ravens, earning the first playoff berth with a third-place seed in the RSEQ. They finished with their best winning season ever with a 5-2 regular season record, only losing games to last season’s national champion University of Ottawa and runner-up Université Laval.
The team’s success has not gone unnoticed; earlier this past week, the Ravens were featured prominently in the all-star RSEQ selections. Head coach Pat Thompson won coach of the year, and the first team selections featured rookie Charlotte Elliot at lock and second-year player Maya Addai at winger. Third-year player Roberta Drummond earned herself a second-team selection at scrum-half as well.
The game was a bruising physical affair from the opening kick-off with the Ravens pushing the ball downfield early.
RSEQ first-team all-star Addai said intensity was the aim for the Ravens, which was inspired by a special surprise from the coaching staff.
“The night before the game in our team meeting, the coaching staff arranged a surprise for us. They had a video with past alumni all telling us how far we’d come and how proud they were of us and how much it meant to them as well,” Addai said. “It was really a touching surprise and I know it made a lot of people dig deeper and push harder.”
Though the Ravens fought the ball within the five, they failed to convert after a penalty on a line out.
“I think that was huge,” Drummond said on the early misfires.“If we had scored there, then we would have been chasing them instead [of] the other way around.”
The game settled into a familiar pattern which the Ravens had seen before in their losses—having control of the ball but unable to move it wide. The rainy weather conditions and top-ranked Rouge et Or defence didn’t help the cause.
The Ravens fought tooth and nail for yards, which resulted in Laval breaking several long runs that went for scores.
The Ravens never gave up and fought all the way to the last whistle with flanker Maddy Wood scoring a try in the last play of the game.
Despite their first try at the playoffs ending in a loss, the future seems bright for the Ravens. With two first-team all-stars Elliot and Addai returning, as well as Drummond, who has another year minimum of eligibility, the team will retain much of their talent from this year.
The team, however, is losing seven players, many of whom are starters. To fill these roles, the team had a well-attended recruiting day on Oct. 13. Drummond said there were 30-40 women who attended, who came from all across Ontario and Quebec.
“It really speaks to the growth of this program people are seeking us out,” she said. “Pat is recruiting people and they’re coming. In my first year, I just sent Pat an email two weeks before training camp. . . Things have changed a lot, and it’s onwards and upwards from here.”
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