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www.insideHALTON.com | OAKVILLE BEAVER | Friday, May 29, 2015 | 30 Jon Kuiperij Sports Editor sports@oakvillebeaver.com Oakville Trafalgar not backing down on goal to be province's best rugby team By Herb Garbutt Oakville Beaver staff Sports "Connected to your Community" It can be intimidating playing the Oakville Trafalgar Red Devils. The powerhouse girls' rugby team routed the Christ the King Jaguars 36-0 to win their eighth consecutive Halton title last week. The owners of three OFSAA medals in the past four years, OT is without a doubt one of the best teams in the province. Rugby Ontario has ranked them either first or second in its weekly high school poll since the beginning of the season. But it turns out it can also be intimidating playing for Oakville Trafalgar. When Sadie Stephenson arrived for tryouts in Grade 9, she had the same feeling that OT opponents undoubtedly experience. "That year, we only had the varsity team and I looked at the Grade 12 girls and I was scared of them," she said. "I quit before the tryouts even finished." That's hard to believe now watching Stephenson drag ball carriers to the ground and push would-be-tacklers aside with a look in her eye that says nothing is going to stop her. A member of the Ontario's under-18 team last year, Stephenson scored four tries in the Red Devils' 53-7 victory over St. Jean de Brebeuf in Tuesday's Golden Horseshoe Athletic Conference final. "I regret that now," Stephenson says of packing it in her first year. If Stephenson had known what she does now, she would have stuck with rugby. The Oakville Trafalgar captain now has a better understanding of how the team operates and realizes she would have been welcomed with open arms. "Like our jerseys say, `As one,'" she explains. "There's definitely a connection on our team. Before we ever played, we all got together, because if you don't connect as friends, you're not going to connect on the field. We're one big family." That family will head to the Ontario Federation of School Athletic Associations tournament as the No. 1 seed. With seven starters back from last year's OFSAA silver-medal winning team, the Red Devils once again have their sights set high, even with a younger team that includes a pair of Grade 9s playing key roles: Taylor Black and Bridget Peros, a player with provincial team experience. "We're lucky in that a lot of our younger players come to us with a lot of rugby experience, so it's a matter of slotting them in and adjusting rather than teaching from the ground up," said OT coach Dan Valley. "We have a lot of athletes with big game experience, a lot returning from last year, who have literally been there." Those that were there last year will go the extra mile to win, after their bid for a second gold medal in three years came up inches short when Abbey Henley was stopped just shy of the try line in the dying seconds of a 6-5 loss in last year's gold medal game. Henley's speed is a dangerous weapon for OT, as she showed against Brebeuf with a pair of 50-plus yard runs for tries. Steph Schooling, Rachel Semler and Melis Atalay also scored while Mikela Lehan and Hannah Nasirbeygi added four conversions. Hard-working Katherine Slattery, Kate Chalmers and Teresa Fang make OT a deep team that will be critical in a tournament format. And though last year's loss may motivate them, the goal wouldn't have been different regardless of last year's result. "It's a process that doesn't change. We look at it and think, `What can we do better next time,'" Valley said. "It is motivation but at the same time it's an expectation we have of ourselves and that doesn't fluctuate a lot year to year." And though the Red Devils' success does put a target on their back, they're ready for it. Oakville Trafalgar's Sadie Stephenson tries to bring down a Brebeuf opponent in Tuesday's Golden Horseshoe Athletic Conference final. Stephenson scored four tries in the Red Devils' 53-7 win. OT now heads to OFSAA looking to improve upon last year's silver medal. | photo by Herb Garbutt -- Oakville Beaver "Inside, we know we're the best team in the province," said Stephenson, who will play at Queen's University next year. "We're ready to have teams come and try to beat us. That makes us better." That sounds like someone who isn't going to be intimidated. AIRE ONE MADNEss sAlE! $700 OFF HI-EFFICIENCY CENTRAL AIR $ Dual identity makes Eagles' Parsons a triple threat By Herb Garbutt Oakville Beaver staff 29 /mTH OAC* IN O.P.A. REbATE $400 uP TO NOW $ 1990 *Call for details Was $ 2690 DON'T PAY until 2016!* * HI-EffICIENCy AIR CONDITIONERS · Free Installation · 10 Year Factory Warranty CALL NOW, QUANTITIES ARE LIMITED! 9 Locations to serve you better Heating & Cooling www.aireone.com A+ RATING 905-849-4998 1-888-827-2665 Nicole Parsons always wants to know she's done her best. It's what led her to middle-distance running. "I wasn't much of a sprinter," said the Grade 9 Abbey Park student. "When I did short races, I wasn't tired at the end so I always thought I could do much better." It would be difficult to improve on Parsons' performance at the Golden Horseshoe Athletic Conference (GHAC) track and field championships. Parsons won all three of her individual events, including one she was competing in for just the second time. Parsons set a personal best, knocking a second of her previous mark, to win the midget girls' 400m in a time of one minute, 1.79 seconds. That time would have earned her a victory in the junior division and put her on the podium in the senior division. Abbey Park track and field coach Bonnie Barran said it's remarkable to watch Parsons run. "She's got this personality, she's so shy and quiet and meek, and then you put her on the track and it's a to- tally different. She's got this determination and drive. It's incredibly impressive. She's got a bright future in track." Parsons also won the midget girls' 800m in 2:31.33, just a second off her best time. Then she won the 300m hurdles despite having only competed in the event once before. "Two other members of my club (the Oakville Legion Track Club) do hurdles," Parsons said. "One of the coaches started to get the hurdles out and I decided to try it for fun." Though she hasn't had the chance to compete in the hurdles for her club, she asked Barran if she could try it. Parsons ran a 50.32 to win the event. "She said `let's give this a go,'" the coach said. "It's new to her and hurdles are not easy, but she's obviously got a natural talent." Now Parsons, who also qualified for regionals with the Eagles' 4x400m relay team that finished third, knows she faces a decision. She planned to drop one event for regionals (today in Brampton) and was leaning toward the 400m, but after her performance at GHAC and seeing she had the top seed time for regionals, she'll compete in all four and delay her decision based on which events she qualifies in for the provincial championships.