U21 westerns in St. Albert, premier women's rugby match and 29th annual St. Albert Triathlon

Junior westerns

The St. Albert Cardinals are going for gold at the U21 westerns this weekend at Legion Memorial Park.

The five-team tournament starts at 10 a.m. Friday, and the Baseball Alberta junior AAA silver medallists play at 1 p.m. against the St. James A’s of Manitoba and the provincial champion Innisfail Merchants at 7 p.m.

Saturday’s start times for the Cardinals are 1 p.m. against the Regina Reds and 7 p.m. against the Regina Pirates. As the Saskatchewan reps, the Reds are the No. 1 team and the Pirates are No. 2.

The last round-robin game is at 11:30 a.m. Sunday, followed by the 2:30 p.m. final.

If a tiebreaker is needed, the final will be moved back to 5:30 p.m.

In the Alberta junior AAA league, the Cardinals (16-6) and Merchants (10-6) finished first and third, respectively, and in Monday’s provincial final at Innisfail the Merchants beat the Cardinals 13-7.

Women’s rugby

Thursday at 7 p.m. the St. Albert Rugby Football Club premier women's team hosts the Strathcona Druids in the last match of the regular season.

Both teams are 4-4 in the Alberta premier table but SARFC ranks fifth with four more bonus points than the seventh-place Druids.

SARFC is winless in two matches after last week’s 28-22 home-field loss to the Pirates (3-4). Tries were 5-4 for the Pirates in the back and forth affair.

SARFC is 2-2 against Edmonton Rugby Union teams in premier and also split four matches against Calgary Rugby Union teams.

The SARFC division two women’s team resumes ERU action Saturday against the Rockers (3-2) at 12:30 p.m. at Ellerslie Rugby Park.

SARFC is third at 4-1.

Sprint triathlon

The final registration totals for the 29^th St. Albert Triathlon on Sunday are 128 sprint racers, 27 try-a-tri and three sprint relay teams.

The start time is 7 a.m. at Fountain Park Recreation Centre for the sprint distance (750-metre swim, 20-kilometre bike and five-km run), try-a-tri (250m swim, 10-km bike and 2.5-km run) and sprint team relay.

Last year’s sprint race winner was Trent Renshaw of Sydney, Australia in one hour, six seconds and 20 seconds and the fastest female was Lisa Ulrich of St. Albert at 1:08:54 for sixth place overall out of 125 finishers.

The triathlon is hosted by St. Albert Road Runners and Triathlon Club.

Volunteers can also register at www.starrt.com or through Alexander Dieleman at [email protected].