The Senior Lacombe Rams Rugby team managed to exorcise some demons and defeat the Stettler Wildcats after a blow-out loss last season left a bad taste in their mouths.
“It ended up being 31-24,” head Coach Kessie Stefanyk said.” The second half got a little exciting but the girls stuck with it and had to battle through a lot of mental errors throughout the game.
“Hats off to Stettler , they never quit — that is for sure.”
Despite having difficulties in the second half putting points on the board, Stefanyk said her team has shown great resilience this season.
“I think we achieved everything we wanted to do goal-setting wise,” she said. “We really getting the ball to the backs and the girls were playing hard. We were making some big hits. We had two huge tackles right off the bat and that gave us a lot of energy. That was nice to see.”
Stefanyk said the win is also a learning win because they now can work on the things that troubled them in the second half.
“We saw a bit of our cardio come into play in the second half, so there is definitely stuff to improve on but it was a strong win for sure,” she said.
Being able to play a full game will be key for the rest of league play and also when and if they play Stettler again
“That loss (From last season) was in our head for quite some time, so to be able to come back and beat Stettler this round was great. We scored all of our points in the first, the scored all of their in the second and we still came out with the seven point win,” she said.
Going forward, the Rams will work on eliminating mental errors.
“We took a tonne of silly penalties, so we want to clean up our game a bit and push the cardio to make it through a full game,” she said, adding she is proud of her team’s performance.
“I am proud of the girls, especially being able to stick with it until the end. That was awesome because it can be easy to fold your tent in those situations. They were able to stick with it and persevere,” she said.
The Rams now head on the road to play Rocky Mountain House on May 8th, before returning to MEGlobal Athletic Park to play Olds on May 15th.
todd.vaughan@lacombeexpress.com
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