Charlottetown, PEI - There will be a new AUS champion this season as the STFX X-Women will not be advancing to the AUS final after losing a hard fought 14-12 semifinal playoff game to the UPEI Panthers Thursday afternoon.
UPEI clinched their first championship berth since 2006 and will face the Acadia Axewomen next Wednesday in Wolfvile, NS for the title.
The X-Women have been AUS champions 22 times in the 23 year history of Atlantic University Sport, dating back to 1998. Acadia won a lone title in 2014 and UPEI will be searching for its first conference banner.
For UPEI fourth-year flanker Brinten Comeau (Hammonds Plains, NS), it's reasons like this that she decided to return for another year. She knew this team was special, and now she has the opportunity to lead them to their first-ever championship.
"I'm over the moon. I have no words," said Comeau, catching her breath after the game. "This whole year has been insane, and I can't even really believe it. I'm just so excited, and we're ready to make more history."
The game was a defensive grind throughout, as each team fought for every yard they gained. The X-Women were the first to score when they took the ball from a ruck and passed it out to the left, where Katie Douglas (Charlottetown, PE) cut toward the middle and went the final 20 metres for the game's first try 13 minutes in.
STFX consistently found themselves in great field position for most of the first half but struggled to put points on the board against the conference's best defence. However, they would get to the Panthers again in the 27th minute when Hannah Ellis (Halifax, NS) drew a defender toward her before spinning a ball to Katherine Culligan (Halifax, NS), who went the final few yards for the try. Madison Ross (Coldbrook, NS) missed a costly conversion on the ensuing play and the score remained 12-0.
Panthers head coach James Voye said there was no panic in the team after they surrendered the first 12 points.
"I think the heart rate went up a little bit. We weren't expecting them to score first," he said. "Did I want to be down 12 points to start the game? No. But that's what we were faced with and credit to the girls for keeping their composure and fighting back."
UPEI battled their way down the field over the next nine minutes and finally broke through. Within five metres of the try line, the ball kept going side to side before it found Emily Duffy (Saint John, NB), who powered her way through the defence to cut the deficit to 12-7 before halftime.
"It was a momentum changer for us," Voye said of the first half try. "If we don't come away with those seven points at that point in the game, who knows what happens in the second half. Maybe that would have changed the outcome of the game."
With the wind behind their backs in the second half, the Panthers looked like the superior team as they controlled the game. In tight quarters once again, Duffy pulled her team ahead in the 53rd minute with her second bulldozer-like try of the game which made it 14-12.
"I just felt the girls' strength and voices behind me telling me to give it my all," Duffy said. "The only reason I got those trys is because the other girls almost pushed their way to the end zone. I just brought it over in the end."
From there, UPEI's defence held up strong against a powerhouse STFX squad and didn't allow them near the try line, as they closed out the win and punched their ticket to next week's AUS final in Wolfville, as well as a trip to the U SPORTS national championship Nov. 2-6 in Victoria, BC.
The AUS conference has two berths in the U SPORTS tournament, therefore both the Panthers and Axewomen have punched their tickets for the eight-team event and will battle it out next week to see who goes in as the AUS champion.
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Recap courtesy Thomas Becker, UPEI Communications