Rugby on the rise locally

Don Fennell, Sports Editor

Aaron Dubois had high hopes for the Matthew McNair Marlins heading into this season. His optimism was rewarded last week when the Richmond side won the Lower Mainland AA high school rugby championship.

What was especially good to see was that the Marlins earned the title by beating another pretty fair Richmond side in the H.J. Cambie Crusaders, 19-5 in the final.

Rugby has come a long way in Richmond the last few years. And it’s because of the efforts of people like Dubois, among many others.

Dubois is a long-time member of the Richmond Rugby Club who stepped up a couple of years ago to coach at the high school level. His mission is simple: to raise the profile of rugby and increase the number of players.

Dubois is a class act and that is reflected by his players. The Marlins played the game hard but with the kind of sportsmanship that is expected.

With the likes of Dubois, Cambie’s Mike Charlton, and Garry Hirayama, Joe Clemente and Al Smith over at Hugh McRoberts (which competes at the triple-A level), the sport will only continue to prosper here.

Speaking of McRoberts, the Strikers are again chasing provincial glory. Runners-up at the B.C. championships lastd year, the Stirkers began their 2005 tournament run yesterday. The final is Saturday night at the University of B.C.

The current edition of the Strikers is young, but capable. They defeated Prince of Wales 37-24 in a spirited match last week. POW was aided by a comment in this paper that suggested they were fortunate to beat McRoberts earlier in the year. Ross Breen, a local lad who coaches POW, used that to inspire his club. Breen said it was the first time in a a couple of years he had something to put up on the bulletin board.

Guess this just shows yet again the power of the press.

•’Twas interesting to track the progress of a couple of teams at the recent National Athletic Inter-collegiate Association women’s softball championships.

Both eventual-champion Simon Fraser University and Thomas University (Thomasville, Georgia) featured several players who have worn the blue and gold of the Richmond Islanders. The SFU lineup includes fourth-year catcher Kim Rossiter and second-year catcher Becky Hartley, a Charles London secondary grad. Thomas was led by senior pitcher Cathy Andrijaszyn, a Hugh Boyd grad, sophomore infielder JoAnn Tosh, a J.N. Burnett grad, and freshman outfielder Brianne Sameshima, who’s an R.A. McMath grad.

•H.J. Cambie Secondary student Liugi Albarracin won the boys’ singles title at the B.C. high school double-A tennis championships last weekend. Cambie was sixth overall, while Steveston placed 11th and McRoberts 12th.

Budgies falling deeper

Don Fennell, Sports Editor

The Richmond Auto Body Budgies are going entirely in the wrong direction, leaving coaches Gord Lowrey, Stew Wilson and Gary Parker virtually speechless.

Following a pair of losses to Surrey, 7-2 and 8-0 last Sunday, the Budgies buried themselves even further in the Pacific Metro Baseball League cellar. They’re now 0-9 and 3.5 games back of sixth-place North Shore (3-6) heading into last night’s scheduled showdown (after press deadlines) between the two teams.

Lowrey has never been one to mince words and he isn’t about to start.

“We deserved to lose,” he said of last weekend’s twinbill. “We were horrible defensively and made six errors over the two games.”

They weren’t much better offensively. Allan Attridge and Jake Dojack had two hits each in the first game, but no one stepped up in the nightcap.

Mark Leith, coming off an arm injury, threw three innings in the opener before making way for veteran Jay Donze who finished up. Donze didn’t give up a run and had a couple of strikeouts, but got little support.

Richmond is slated to host Nanaimo in a doubleheader at Latrace Field in Minoru Park on June 5. Game times are noon and 2:30 p.m.