Injuries end Hat High’s rugby season early

By SEAN ROONEY on June 6, 2019.

A promising season for high school rugby has ended with a whimper.

Hat High’s boys did enough to qualify for provincials this weekend in Lethbridge, but aren’t going after their roster was decimated by injuries.

Meanwhile, the city-wide girls team based at Crescent Heights never made it past the regular season. Coach Georgia Bull confirmed they played their first four games but couldn’t continue due to a lack of players.

None of it bodes well for the sport locally, but boys coach Quinn Skelton said he was proud of the effort his Mohawks put up Monday in a 31-26 South Zone final loss to LCI.

“We were super happy with the kids who finished the game,” said Skelton, whose side was still eligible for provincials as the zone’s No. 2 seed in Tier 1. “They played real well, they played their hearts out and we were one try away. We outplayed them the last 10, 15 minutes.”

Top player Lachlan Hardiker was among the last to go down with an injury, leaving the Mohawks without their primary kicker. Skelton said fellow veteran Josh Howe separated his shoulder a couple weeks ago during a game. By the time the zone final had ended, he had nobody left on the bench – and then he found out about a concussion to another player.

“It was just a rash of injuries in the last two or three weeks,” he said. “We didn’t have the horses at the end.”

Chinook has been offered the spot at provincials given they were third in the zone in Tier 1, and wouldn’t have to travel to compete. There was no word by press time as to whether the Coyotes have decided to take the spot.

Skelton’s been frustrated in recent years as rugby teams were affected by other sports. This year track and field provincials take place on the same weekend, but he’s less concerned about that as he is about club basketball and volleyball – sports whose high school seasons are in the fall and winter, but ones that have seen tremendous growth in the spring in the Medicine Hat region recently.

In other zone rugby finals, Raymond beat LCI in Tier 1 girls and Fort McLeod beat Winston Churchill 22-12 in Tier 2 girls.