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2 1 | Friday M ay 2 6 , 2 0 1 7 | OAKVILLE BEAVER | w w w .in s id e h a lto n .c o m Kevin Nagel, Oakville Beaver Sports Editor, knagel@burlingtonpost.com Sports "Connected to your Community " 'The m ost com plete team w e've ever had' says coach after Red Devils rom p to 10th straight Halton title By Herb Garbutt Oakville Beaver staff W hen your team has w on 10 straight Halton titles and two provincials cham pionships, the standards are pretty high. That's why Oakville Trafalgar Red Devils coach Dan Valley's assessm ent of this year's team carries so m uch weight. "Unequivocally, the m ost complete team we've ever had," Valley said after his team con tinued its decade of dominance with a 66-0 victory over Milton's Jean Vanier in Tuesday's Halton senior Tier 1 girls' rugby final. While results like that haven't been un com m on in league play -- O T's average mar gin of victory in the past five Halton cham pionships is 42 points -- what has Valley and his team feeling optimistic this year is their play against som e of the province's top teams. Am ong those results is a 36-5 victory over Guelph's J.E Ross, the No. 3-ranked team in the province and the team that beat the Red Devils in last year's Ontario Federa tion of School Athletic A ssociations final. "This w asn't surprising," Valley said of having a powerhouse team after returning 27 of 37 players from last year's squad. "W hat Ols Ryley Gould (top photo) drives through Jean Vanier's Lola Schincaglia and Olivia Klepacki in Tuesday's Halton final, won 66-0 by Oakville Trafalgar and celebrated by co-captains Thea White (left, in photo at right) and Simone Oliveira. | Nikki Wesley - Oakville Beaver is surprising is the w ay w e've played against the big team s." St. Roch w as as high as sixth in Rugby Ontario's high school rankings before being shut out 51-0 by OT. In four gam es against teams that have m ade the top 10 or earned honorable mentions, OT has outscored its opponents 159-5. Of course, OT w as also ranked No. 1 last year and had as m uch belief in its abilities before being upset 27-19 by J.F Ross in last year's provincial cham pionship game. That is som ething the Red Devils are keenly aware of. "There are no guarantees, no matter what you've done before," said OT scrum half Sim one Oliveira. "Having been there and feeling what it was like to lose after you've gone so far, I think it motivated a lot of us." "We were so close last year," said Thea White, who will play with her co-captain Oliveira at Queen's next year. "When it came to putting in that extra practise, running that extra mile in training, we remembered that. We know what we are capable of." Maybe. But the results so far are mindboggling. The Halton final improved O T's record to a perfect 25-0. In those gam es, it has outscored opponents 956-25. Valley said there's a sim ple reason for O T's dom inance -- the w ork the players have put in. Though there is a wide range of experi ence -- White grew up in a rugby family and has played since she w as eight years old while Oliveira didn't pick up a rugby ball un til arriving at OT in Grade 9 -- the desire to continue O T's success has raised the level of everyone's game. "T his group has accum ulated m ore hours (o f training), not all through our program ," said Valley, the under-18 national team coach. "They've done it through provincial and national program s, the R ogues 7s, and the others who haven't had those opportu nities, they've w orked hard to stay in the race." The race didn't last long in Tuesday's final. Taylour Hurd took a pass from Taylor Black in the opening m inute and sprinted across the try line as OT jum ped in front 7-0. Vanier responded well, pushing the ball in side OT's 22-metre line and sustaining its po sition for five minutes, though never seriously threatening. Then as if to say, `OK, enough of that,' OT produced a flurry of tries, scoring six times in 14 minutes. White broke four tackles be fore dishing off to Black. Two m inutes later Jaden Walker charged through the Vanier defenders. Before the half, tries by Hurd, Hannah Izzard, Black and White left Vanier black and blue and trailing 56-0. Walker and Victoria Leonard added second-half tries to round out the scoring. OT is well aware that reclaiming the OFSAA gold it won in 2015 is in its grasp. The players also know the hard w ork is ju st be ginning. "We're in a good rhythm that is going to help us continue to drive forward," White said. "This is one of the building blocks, but we can't get ahead of ourselves." Info Night - 2017/2018 Season! Contact us by email: info@fieldhouseathletics.com Train with Fieldhouse with lessons and classes to get ready for summer! Phone: 905-639-3421 5230 Harvester Road fieldhouseathletics.ca High Performance Softball Teams High Performance Baseball Teams Independent Travel Baseball Teams