Another gold medal OFSAA win for Holy Cross girls AA rugby team

The Holy Cross Hurricanes girls rugby team captured its second OFSAA AA girls rugby gold medal in three years with a 24-15 win over Centre Dufferin in Courtice on Wednesday. Team members include front, from left, Avery Gaebel, Kassidy Buott, Charlie Wade, Iza Sutherland, Jenna Whynot, Logan Jolley, Olivia Gaebel, Shannon Elliott, Macy Harper, Mariella Collins, Olivia Cote-Wawryszn, Lillie Pascoe, Jordyn Scott, Katie Belk, Jaden Whynot. Back, from left, Jake Fowler, Jacey Stone, Chloe McMahon, Bridgette Shannon, Annie Briand, Arrisa Fowler, Morgan Yeomans, Olivia Desautal, Victoria Lyons, Harlowe Gallagher-Ahrens, Lillie Bidgood, Kyrsten White, Myah McCormack, Hannah Patching, Jillian Urie, Grace Conner, Brian Greer, Erin Preston, Lea Davis.

Article courtesy of the Peterborough Examiner.

Hurricanes defeat Centre Dufferin 25-15 to clinch second championship in three years.

The Holy Cross Hurricanes produce Golden Girls.

The Hurricanes senior girls rugby team won its second OFSAA AA championship in three years with a 24-15 victory over Centre Dufferin in Courtice on Wednesday afternoon. Five of those girls also won an OFSAA AA hockey gold medal earlier this year. It was the Hurricanes’ fourth consecutive trip to the OFSAA rugby final.

“It’s incredible,” said Macy Harper, co-captain of the rugby team.

She and teammates Katie Belk, Olivia Cote-Wawryszen, Olivia Desautel and Jordyn Scott were also members of the championship hockey team. “Winning two OFSAAs in the same year is an amazing experience.”

Jake Fowler, who coaches the Hurricanes with Brian Greer, noted the Holy Cross rugby program swept all four girls and boys COSSA rugby junior and senior championships this year and the boys are seeded No. 3 heading into their OFSAA AA tournament in Stratford beginning on Thursday.

“It’s an amazing time to be at Holy Cross,” said Fowler. “All our sports teams are setting the bar really high, from the girls hockey to the boys football teams to what the boys rugby accomplished last week. We went four for four at COSSA in rugby and I don’t know if that’s ever been done before.”

Co-captain Shannon Elliott, who led the Hurricanes with two tries, is the lone girl to start on both the 2022 and 2024 OFSAA gold medallists.

“It’s great, especially since we didn’t have the opportunity to bring home a gold medal last year,” said Elliott. “Being able to come back this year and get the job done with an amazing team was great. We’re all so close and we all bonded so well and just played our hearts out.”

Harper, who played a little on the 2022 team as a junior call-up, said the loss in last year’s final served as motivation.

“I think honestly it came down to who wanted it,” she said. “We wanted it really bad. We knew how it felt to win OFSAA and we wanted that feeling again. We also knew how it felt to lose in a gold medal game and we did not like that feeling.”

Elliott said the success of the girls rugby program starts with the players and ends with the coaching.

“Everyone who comes out for rugby has a passion for it. Coach Fowler really pushes us to the limit he knows we can reach. We put our heart into every practice and work so hard to get there. Our program has always been amazing … our commitment, our hard work and our discipline.”

Elliott put Holy Cross in front on a try converted by Logan Jolley but Centre Dufferin replied to tie it. The Hurricanes got tries from Cote-Wawryszen and Elliott again to lead 19-7 at halftime. Centre Dufferin scored a penalty kick to close to within 19-15 with five minutes remaining.

The Hurricanes defence held and Belk jumped on a ball Jolley kicked into the end zone on the last play of the game to round out the scoring.

“We might have slowed down a little bit,” said Elliott. “But when the score was getting close we definitely shut that down. We kept pressuring them and scored in the last second of the game just to confirm our win.”

“It was incredible to see how our girls really came together through adversity and pushed through,” said Harper. “It’s beautiful to watch that happen.”

“There is so much that goes into it and so many things that can go wrong,” said Fowler. “It’s always incredible to see a team be able to finish the job and come together and accomplish something like this.”