Three years of building ended in a provincial crescendo. The Foothills Falcons claimed the Tier I boys rugby provincial bronze medal with authority, overpowering the Medicine Hat Mohawks 44-26 on June 9 to climb on the podium for the second time in three years. “It was definitely different this year,” said Falcons Grade 12 fly-half Thomas Isherwood. “Every year I’ve played high school rugby I’ve had over half the team brand new to the game, a lot of football players that came out. “This year we won our first game after three practices, got second in our first tournament and have just kept improving all year, now we’re third best in the province. It’s hard work all year paying off.” Within 10 minutes of kick-off the Falcons had a 19-0 lead to work with. “All of our Grade 12s, we wanted to end our careers off with a bang,” Isherwood said. “We just wanted to come out flying.” Boy, did they ever. Jude Oh found himself in the try-zone seemingly seconds from kick-off. The inside-centre was at the centre of another score with a terrific fumble recovery at midfield before offloading to on-charging winger Josh Durand for the first of three scores by the Grade 10 speedster. In short order, Isherwood danced his way into the try zone after a scrum to make it a 19-point lead. “That builds up the confidence so much,” said Durand of the team’s terrific start. “Once you’ve got that confidence you’re not scared to go into those tackles.” The Mohawks would not go away quietly, every time the Falcons looked to have put them away, Medicine Hat’s strong forward play kept them in contention. Isherwood and Durand added late first half scores to give the Comp a healthy 34-14 lead at halftime. Durand completed the trifecta of trys early in the second half, taking a quarterback-like feed from Tyson Pitcher and finishing off the move. Full-back Seth Nelson ran through virtually the entire Mohawks team on a terrific individual effort to increase the lead to 44-21. Med Hat scored one late, but the deal was done. “It was just fun – that’s all I can think about,” said Falcons scrum-half McKinlay Roberts. “Just a good game, it couldn’t have been against a better opponent, we just played a little bit better. “They were really aggressive in their forwards, they played a forward game which we’re not really used to, we’re used to backs with speed. Our guys stepped up a lot with their tackles.” Foothills narrowly missed out on a spot in the gold medal game. The eventual gold medallist Harry Ainlay Titans scored two late trys to edge Foothills 26-22 in a terrific semifinal. The Falcons opened the tournament in a 17-0 shutout over Calgary’s Henry Wise Wood Warriors. “It was a couple mistakes from the ref, couple mistakes from us,” Isherwood said. “It’s hard when they have guys four times the size of our forwards. We hit them as hard as we could. They just got lucky at the end and beat us by four points.” There was not a lot of time spent dwelling on what could have been. The Falcons quickly reset and focused on getting another spot on the podium hours after the Foothills girls battled to their second straight provincial silver medal. “This is my first provincials in just my second year of rugby,” Durand added. “We had so many new players at the start, so many first years, and starting out with nothing and building it up to a team that gets third in provincials, I’m so happy.” On the other end of the experience spectrum, Foothills Lions academy stalwarts Roberts and Isherwood proved to be huge sources of inspiration for the squad. “They’re helped our team a lot,” Durand said. “They’re pretty much like second or third coaches, always helping us in practice, they always take leadership over everybody when we need it. “That was definitely a lot of the motivation, we wanted to have a good last game for them and work as hard as we could.” Foothills Falcons roster: Adam Collins, Alex May, Ben Tattersall, Cooper Callister, Diesel Wood, Dominic Cayetano, Draytin Maund, Drayvin Whitney, Ellio MacRae-Polson, Flynn Roberts, Izach Egert, Jesse Munro, Josh Derochie, Josh Durand, Jude Oh, Kyle Hartle, Logan Guttridge, Logan Heffron, McKinlay Roberts, Patrick Shenouda, Payton Price, Peter May, Seth Nelson, Syrus Chubak, Tyson Pitcher, Wyatt Williams. Knights sixth The Holy Trinity Academy Knights earned a sixth place finish at the Tier I boys rugby provincials. The South Central Zone wild card entry and eighth seed, HTA earned a tough draw in its opener in the silver medallist St. Francis Browns. The Knights dropped a tight match 12-5 before rebounding in a big way with a 43-19 romp over Lindsay Thurber to move on to the consolation final. The Knights and Bowness Trojans played a terrific back-and-forth tilt with the Calgary school holding on for the 33-26 victory. The Knights roster: Alexander Delisle, Alexander Huenison, Andrew Rowan, Austin Reiber, Bernardo Briseno, Blake Jeanson, Brendan Wagner, Caleb Labrenz, Colt Tong, Dominic Fincaryk, Dryden Wedderburn, Dylan Helm, Edward Boudreau, Enrique Jimenez, Ethan Rasmussen, Ethan Zapach, Evan Bruynzeel, Hayden Morkin, Jack Galan, Jonah Moser, Julian Jenkins, Liam Chiasson, Liam Fleet, Luke Smallwood, Malachi Busse, Max Krueger, Michael Farmer, Miguel Villarreal,Olagoke Jide-Odewale, Peter Ottenbreit, Quintin Helm, Ryan Petrovich, Samuel Marchant, Tanner William, Thomas Tallon.
