Courtesy Glenn MacDonald, The Chronicle Herald
Mon, Nov 1 , 2010
The St. Francis Xavier X-Women captured another Atlantic conference title by doing what they do best — steamroll through the competition.
Third-year prop Asya Bartley tallied three tries to pace the X-Women to a 57-0 whitewash of the Acadia Axewomen in a soggy AUS championship Sunday afternoon in Antigonish.
It’s the 13th consecutive Atlantic title for the X-Women, who have won every league championship since women’s rugby became a varsity sport in 1998.
"You never get tired of winning," St. F.X. head coach Mike Cavanagh said. "It wasn’t a very nice day up here. It was wet and cold. For the weather, I was pretty happy with the effort from the girls."
The Axewomen headed into their first title match in seven years having dropped both meetings against the CIS No. 3-ranked X-Women during the regular season. St. F.X. outscored Acadia 175-3 in the teams’ three meetings.
Cavanagh praised the effort put forth by the Axewomen, who trailed 24-0 at the half on Sunday.
"Our girls realized Acadia was a strong team and they gave them their due respect," Cavanagh said.
"Acadia actually held their own defensively. They held us up in their end; we were on their try line three or four times and we came away with nothing. They came with a good effort and never gave up for the whole 80 minutes."
Conference MVP Tyson Beukeboom and Amanda Thornborough each collected a pair of tries and Megan Pritchard added a single major. AUS rookie of the year Magali Harvey had six conversions.
In seven games this season, including Sunday’s final, the X-Women scored a whopping 463 points and only allowed six.
And they did it after the best player in the history of the St. F.X. program — Ghislaine Landry — graduated last spring. Landry was a four-time Atlantic conference MVP, twice a winner of the Canadian university player of the year and the all-time point-getter in the CIS.
But Cavanagh said this year’s X-Women may be the deepest team he has fielded since he joined the program in 1999.
"This could be the strongest team we’ve had. We have a lot more depth this year," said Cavanagh, whose team advances to the four-day CIS championship, beginning Thursday at Trent University in Peterborough, Ont.
"We kind of rode the coattails of Ghislaine and Lisa Gauthier, who was injured this year. We have a lot more scoring threats and we’re playing more like a team. I think we can take it to the next level when given the opportunity, which we will have next week.
"That depth will help us at nationals," he added. "We play three games in four days. It’s tough. But we haven’t had this much depth and we’re healthy."