All good things come to an end.
The Cochrane Bears boys rugby team had the goal of making it to the Alberta Schools’ Athletic Association (ASAA) Provincials in the back of their collective minds all season.
After achieving that, it looked like the stage was set for something special. Unfortunately, the year didn’t quite have the fairy-tale ending the boys were looking for over the weekend of June 3 and 4 in Lethbridge, as they finished in fourth-place.
“Our goal was to get to provincials, so anything past that was a bonus,” said Bears co-head coach Anthony Battistone. “To finish fourth was great, I think we exceeded expectations.
“The guys played their hearts out.”
The Bears opened their account with a 26-7 win over Lloydminster, playing with a split squad to give junior players provincial experience.
“That first game was great,” Battistone said, “It allowed us to give all our guys some action and we played really well.”
The semi-final against Winston Churchill High School – who won the tournament – however, was a heartbreaker, as the Bears lost 14-12, thanks to a last-minute try and some penalty problems.
“We had a couple unfortunate errors and some mental discipline issues,” Battistone said. “We played 32 minutes of excellent rugby, but when they scored our heads went down a bit.”
The Cochrane team’s problems were further confounded when fly-half Rylen Waugh was issued a yellow card for a high tackle, before full-back Marcus Hiebert received another a couple of minutes later to give Churchill a 15 to 13-man advantage.
“We got too many penalties, but we tried our best,” Battistone said. “They scored again with the men advantage, before picking up a penalty try and sending their kick down the middle to beat us.
“We were pretty heartbroken.”
In the bronze medal game against F.P. Walshe, (of Fort Macleod), the number-one ranked team in the province, the team tried to rally for a comeback, but it wasn’t in the cards, as they crashed out 55-0.
“We played 10 minutes of really hard rugby, before they scored, which deflated us a bit,” Battistone said. “They scored again, and the boys were done mentally and exhausted physically. At half-time, we started making subs and giving our junior players game time.”
Despite a disappointing end to the campaign, Battistone is already looking to next year as he has 18 players from his 30-man squad returning.
“A bunch of our Grade 10s and 11s got a lot of great experience this season, so we expect to be back next year,” he said. “There’s a couple Grade 9s coming up and we always get a dozen or so Grade 12s who are done playing football, so hopefully we can convert them.
“We’re in good shape going forward.”
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