At the end of the round-robin competition at the CIS women’s rugby championship, the Concordia Stingers find themselves in second place in Pool B and with a berth in the bronze medal game tomorrow at noon (Atlantic time) in Antigonish, N.S.
The Stingers won their opening game, defeating the Queen’s Gaels 29-0 on Friday. Earlier today, they lost 40-0 to the No. 1-ranked St. Francis Xavier X-Women, who are hosting the championship tournament.
Concordia (1-1) will face the Alberta Pandas (1-1) for CIS bronze. The Stingers have reached the championship four of the last six years. Their best finish was in 2010 when they won a silver medal.
St. Francis Xavier, who dominated the play for the majority of the afternoon against the Stingers, will meet the Guelph Gryphons in the gold medal game.
St. FX’s Magali Harvey was the undisputed star of the round-robin finale. The all-Canadian fullback accounted for 30 of the game’s 40 points, including all 23 points in the first 35-minute half. She finished the contest with three tries, a pair of penalty goals and two converts.
Team captain Asya Bartley and AUS all-star winger Lisa Gauthier rounded out the scoring with a try apiece.
The Stingers had their best scoring chance in the 48th minute when fullback Jenna Giuliani broke free of the defence for a 40-yard run bringing the ball deep into X-Women territory. Concordia was unable to take advantage of the favorable field position.
The Stingers pressured again in the 53rd minute with a five-metre scrum, the closest they had been to the try line at that point in the game, but the St. FX defence again pushed them back.
“Sometimes you lose to better teams, and I think today X had a gear that we couldn’t stop in the first 15 minutes,” said Concordia head coach Graeme McGravie. “At the end of the day, that was the difference.”
