Rugby X-Women cruise to win over Huskies in season opener

Antigonish, NS - The defending CIS champion StFX X-Women (1-0) opened the AUS rugby regular season with a convincing 83-0 victory over the visiting Saint Mary's Huskies (0-1) Friday evening at Oland Stadium.

With a first-year player laden line-up fielded by veteran head coach Mike Cavanagh, the X-Women scored early and often in taking a 52-0 half-time advantage.

Junior wing Sara Gandy (Truro, NS), with her first of two opening-half tries, gave the home team a 5-0 lead in the first 90 seconds of the match.

Freshman Merrit Blair (Ottawa, ON) doubled the advantage shortly after the Gandy score. With the conversion from Dominique Lalande (Halifax, NS), the X-Women jumped ahead 12-0.

At the 15-minute mark, a try from rookie Nicole Tower (Bass River, NS) and another conversion from Lalande stretched the X-Women lead to 19-0.

Gandy, who took a great pass from freshman center Keeley MacCuish (Trenton, NS), made it 24-0 before Lalande tacked on her third conversion (26-0).

Freshman #8 Carolyn Williams showed her speed as she broke away from the pack to score a try, which was capped by a Lalande conversion, making it 33-0.

Sophomore Maggie McDonald (Ottawa, ON), with a try, and Lalande (conversion) widened the X-Women lead to 40-0.

Subway player of the match Jaelei Meyer (Carlyle, SK) raced to her first of three tries. After another Lalande conversion, StFX led 47-0.

After a great run and off-load by #8 Abena Danquah (Accra, Ghana), veteran Jayme Ward (Kingston, ON) collected a try, the final points for the X-Women in the first 40 minutes of play as they took a 52-0 lead into halftime.

Freshman prop Sam Lake (Windsor, NS) scored the first StFX points of the second half when she busted through three Saint Mary's tacklers to make it 57-0, followed by Lalande's seventh conversion of the match (59-0).

Another kick from Lalande, following a try from freshman Emily Ramroop (Scarborough, ON), gave the X-Women a 66-0 lead.

Back-to-back electrifying tries from Meyer, along with Lalande's ninth and final conversion of the match, made it 78-0 for the blue and white.

MacCuish wrapped up the scoring (83-0) with a late try.

Fullback Hannah Wallace (New Glasgow, NS) and scrum half Emily Nearing (Nerepis, NB), her team's player of the match, provided strong efforts for the Huskies.

The Huskies return to action Saturday, Sept. 19, when they host the Acadia Axewomen in their regular season opener in Halifax.

The X-Women will hit the road for Charlottetown, where they will clash with the UPEI Panthers on the same day.

Opening kick-off for both matches is 2 p.m.

-30-