Courtesy The Chronicle Herald

The St. Francis Xavier X-Women rugby team’s drive for a dozen Atlantic championships begins this coming week as the 2009 regular season opens today.

St. F.X. has won 11 conference titles in the 11 years since women’s rugby was added as a varsity sport to the Atlantic University Sport program in 1998. The X-Women captured the 2006 Canadian Interuniversity Sport championship.

The dynamic duo of Courtnay Malcolm and Ghislaine Landry should again be a handful for the opposition this season. The fourth-year stars finished 1-2 in the country in scoring.

Malcolm, a blindside winger from New Glasgow, collected 11 tries and a CIS-best 37 conversions for 135 points, tops in the nation.

Landry, the reigning two-time CIS player of the year and winner of the last three AUS most valuable player awards, led all university players with 22 tries.

For good measure, centre Lisa Gauthier, the conference’s rookie of the year, was third in the country with 10 tries.

All three earned AUS first-team all-star nods last season. In fact, 10 of the 15 all-star selections went to a St. F.X. player.

St. F.X., which has not lost a regular-season game since the 2004 season, enters the new season ranked second overall in the country.

The two-time defending national champion Lethbridge Pronghorns, who defeated the X-Women in last year’s Canadian championship final, top the first-ever CIS women’s rugby rankings.

Lethbridge received 88 points in the inaugural coach’s poll, followed by St. F.X. (69) and Guelph (65). No other Atlantic university squad cracked the top 10.

The season kicks off this evening in Wolfville, as the Acadia Axewomen host the UPEI Panthers at 7 p.m. The Saint Mary’s Huskies visit the X-Women on Wednesday for the season opener for each team.

The Atlantic championship game is slated for Halloween. The six-team CIS tournament will be hosted by the University of British Columbia, Nov. 5-8 in Vancouver.