(Courtesy Samantha Lahache)
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rugby team finished in second place out of the entire southwest conference for college rugby, and were looking to go further last weekend.
Last Sunday was their bye into the playoffs and right into the semi-finals where the Blues faced Heritage College at Concordia University, Loyola Campus at 10 a.m. Saturday.
The Blues took the win over Heritage with a 48-10 final score, and knocked them out of the playoffs.
“It was a great game for all of us, wasn’t the best but it wasn’t the worst either, but we played to our potential,” Brianna Ottereyes, who plays second row.
“We had two weeks to prepare for this semi-final, worked on what we needed to work on from our loss against John Abbott. Everyone worked hard and we cleaned up our mistakes on the field. Every player that was put on the field played and worked as a team,” she said.
“Everyone cleaned up their mistakes, that’s how we won. Practiced together, played together and worked hard together. We don’t fear our opponents, we respect them and it was a great game,” said Ottereyes.
It is also Samantha Lahache’s first year playing with the rest of the women on the Blues. Lahache played for the Howard S. Billings Blazers last year but then graduated and moved on to join the Blues at the CEGEP level.
“We had a really good game, we started off really strong and at the end maybe five to 10 minutes left of the game is when they got their two tries. We were exhausted at that point,” she said.
“Overall this game is the one we really played as a team and knew what we had to do strategically in order to continue to the final game. We work very well together. We’re like a huge family,” said Lahache.
The team reminds each other that they are “playing for the jersey next to them,” when prepping for a game.
“Every mistake is something to learn from and with that everyone is making progress and helping each other out as much as possible and pushing at our limits to achieve this victory, not only for Dawson but for each other,” Lahache said.
The next game for the Blues is the final they have been anxiously waiting for.
Dawson will face John Abbott College on John Abbott’s home turf at 12:30 p.m. for a rematch Saturday.
The last game that Dawson and John Abbott had against each other, it was the last season one for both teams, as John Abbott ended up taking the close win, 22-17.
This time, Lahache and the rest of the Blues are getting ready for revenge.
“We want this for each other, for our graduating teammates especially, and our coaches and ATs who put their time into helping the team get better,” said Lahache.
sports@ed.quanglo.ca
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