By Adam Eisenbarth
The booming sounds of thunder surrounded the rugby pitch but the Lightning couldn’t seem to strike against the Rimbey Spartans.
The Rimbey girls’ rugby team cruised to a 40-7 win over the Hunting Hills Lightning and continues to impress coach Ceara Newman this season. “We’re very happy with how it’s coming together.”
With weaker competition, Newman says it can be difficult to stay focused on improving their game but the team still found a way to make use of the matchup.
“I think we used this for more of a learning experience. We put girls in different positions, moved them around so that if we have injuries we’ll have girls that can play multiple positions. That’s been one of the strengths of our team because most of the girls can play three different positions and we use games like this to do that.”
A number of reserve players took the field along the way, another plus for a lighter game.
“They get more experience. Our reserve players are going to be our starters in a couple years so it’s really good for them to get in.”
The team participated in a tournament the weekend before and while Newman has plenty of confidence in her team, even she was surprised with their effort.
“We won all of our games except for one. The team that beat us are Div. 1 provincial champs and they won the tournament. It was actually phenomenal, I’ve never seen our team play the way they played last weekend.”
Now the task will be to keep up their great play as they march toward provincials in June.
“I think they can. We’re hoping so. If we play like that, we’ll do well in provincials.”
On May 25 the Spartans match up in Red Deer against Notre Dame for what is anticipated to be their biggest challenge of the season.
“They are top in the league right now, but if we beat them it will be us, so we’ll see.”
The Spartans have one remaining home game on May 28.