Wednesday's morale booster lifted the spirits of St. Albert's scrum queens.
The playoff bound division two team raised its record to 5-3 after overwhelming the Nor'Westers 51-5 at the St. Albert Rugby Football Club.
Several players on the SARFC roster also do double duty in the Alberta premier division with the struggling 2-7-1 squad.
"We definitely needed the win today, not only for the standings but also for ourselves helping out our confidence," said Maddie Doyle, who plays the prop position with a bouncer's mentality.
SARFC shares fourth place with the Leduc Crude (5-2) in the Edmonton Rugby Union table with two matches left before the Sept. 9 opening playoff round for teams ranked third to sixth.
The premier table lists SARFC sixth out of eight teams at 2-7-1 entering its last match in the fixtures today against the Rams (3-7) in Calgary.
"We lost to the Rams (56-19) at home so we want to go down there and stomp on them pretty much and get a win. We want to end our premier season on a high and then get right back into div two with our playoffs and focus on winning and getting the job done," said Doyle, 20.
Fielding two teams this year to accommodate the growing number of players was the latest milestone for the SARFC women's program under the direction of head coach Byron Elliott after a dismal 1-12 ERU spring league/division two campaign in 2013 and interest waning in player commitments.
SARFC also made the leap of faith into premier with the Clan and Pirates from the first-time ERU division one format after going 9-4 as a semifinalist in the five-team circuit.
Last year's premier division consisted of four teams.
"The premier season has definitely been a tough one but we knew going into it, it was going to be tough. It's a big step up for us," said Doyle, who broke into the SARFC senior ranks in 2015 as a high school rugby product of the Paul Kane Blues. "We have a lot of players who are premier players but we do have some growing to do on the premier side for sure but overall as a premier team this was a great first season for us in my opinion. We've all grown a lot as players and as a team."
The premier team is averaging 20.3 points per match and 43.4 points against. The worst loss 53-0 to the Strathcona Druids (8-2) and the biggest margin of victory was 43-5 over the Clan (0-9-1).
"The toughest part has been the level of competition because it's a step up. The other teams are faster, their smarter and they don't make as many mistakes. They play hard and strong. We're also playing against some girls on the national team so it's good competition for sure and it's definitely showing us things we need to work on," Doyle said.
Division two is more of an even playing field for SARFC. Wednesday's win was the third in four matches and the lone setback in that stretch of success was 25-14 to Leduc.
"The past few games we've played in div two we've had our heads turned on and we've been playing great," said Doyle, who scored the first of the team's nine tries with a thunderous burst in the eighth minute against the eighth-place Nor'Westers (2-6).
SARFC led 12-0 after the first quarter, 17-0 at halftime and 31-5 after three quarters.
A series of stoic defensive stands in the first half kept the Nor'Westers off the scoreboard.
It was 31-0 when the visitors punched in their only try with two minutes left in the third quarter.
The young and talented Dewitt twins, Emily and Kendall, produced multiple points through tries and conversions for the winners.
Brie Grey and Marcia Davis, a pair of seasoned SARFC veterans, showed off their moxie with tries in the second half and Kirsten Porter, another experienced rugger, came off the bench to run in two tries in the fourth quarter.
"Byron wanted us to start the game off with an edge and I definitely think we did that. We went out and played hard and you could tell we wanted the win today. We were hungry for it. We were aggressive. We were blowing people out of the rucks. We were smart with ball handling when we had possession and when we were on defence we weren't letting them get by us. We were fast off the line," Doyle said.
The next match is Wednesday versus the sixth-place Clan (3-5) at 7 p.m. at SARFC.
U18 rugby
The SARFC U18 men and women are one win away from advancing to the Aug. 26 provincials at Ellerslie Rugby Park.
Both teams are competing in the Aug. 23 ERU finals at 7 p.m. at Ellerslie.
The men (3-3) battle first-place Druids Red (4-0) after a courageous 39-36 semifinal decision against the Clan (3-2) at Airways Park. A gritty SARFC side scored the winning try on basically the last play of the match from close range of the try line despite a shortage of players.
In league play, SARFC lost 50-22 to the Clan and 68-29 to Druids Red.
The first-place women (7-0) line up against the playoff winner between the teams ranked second to fifth in the U18 table.
Last year the SARFC women won six and lost one as the ERU champions and provincial finalists.
SCRUM BALLS: SARFC is represented on the Alberta Wolf Pack teams at the Canadian Rugby Championships, starting Tuesday at Calgary Rugby Park, by the following players: Mackenzie Hamm, Kiana Krueger and Shelby Pierce for U16 women, Colton Brenneis for U16 men, Payton McNeill and Alexie Pusch for U18 women and Kyle Dolph for U18 men.
